Death in the Hollywood Hills

In the nearly four years, since her daughter Kristi Johnson took that awful chance with man who came promising fame Terry Hall has lived in her own private house of horrors.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: The pain doesn’t hurt any less?

Terry Hall, Kristi Johnson’s mother: No. The pain is with me every day.  Every moment. It’s almost like a wave that comes from behind me and just kind of crashes on me.

And while she wept and waited for the trial of Victor Paleologus,  Terry wondered, how her Kristi could have been taken in?

Hall: What was really striking to me was the fact that Kristi was a very savvy, smart young woman. And for her to have been convinced to go to a situation such as this, I thought to myself, this must have been a very experienced predator.

And always the question... What happened?

Hall: I think I have enough information already to know that it was very horrifying.  And that’s a great struggle.

And so it went, as legal motions ground their long and slow journey, and Victor Paleologus grew wan and pale from years in the men’s central jail.  The detective worked on the circumstantial case.  And that was getting stronger by the day.

Det. Obenchain: We had another woman call us on the tip line, and she said that she saw Mr. Paleologus at the Century City mall on February 15.  We also got a call from Mr. Paul Cady who is a realtor, who had shown Mr. Paleologus numerous houses, particularly one house on Skyline Drive that was several hundred yards away from where her body was found.

Finally July 13, 2006, it began.

The prosecution brought in Susan Murphy, Cathy Debuono, and a few other women with less than savory encounters with Paleologus in the past.

Susan Murphy: Anyone who was in that court will tell you my voice.  I was shaking.  There’s a jury right there.  And then just looking at her family, that broke my heart.  Broke my heart. And I kept thinking about, what if that was my dad sitting out there? 

Christine Kludjian, assaulted by Paleologus way back in 1989, wasn’t called to testify but observed it all and was worried.

Christine Kludjian: I was concerned that the jury was going to look at the circumstantial evidence and be swayed by that and not by his past history, his past actions. That was the most important thing for me in this case.  It’s not about a naive, trusting, young female.  Thank God for naive, trusting, young females in this world.  It’s about a repeat predator offender. 

The case depended on a pattern, an M.O.. The evidence was  circumstantial but strong. But Detective Obenchain admitted she was worried.

Det. Obenchain: It just takes one juror to not be completely convinced and we’d have to start the entire process over again.

Morrison: In a trial when you’re dealing with a con man how much of a worry is that?

Det. Obenchain: There is a worry.  He’s a con man, and he’s very, very good at it. He had quite a few people convinced.

FREE VIDEO ‘A master con man’ Nov. 11: Prosecutor David Walgren goes into the mind of the suspect, calling him a ‘master con man’ with ‘sexual deviance.’ He also believes there are many more victims out there, dead or alive. Dateline NBC

So the rest of the women got up on the stand and recounted the stories of the apparently mild-manner guy who offered to help make them famous, who dangled the possibility that they, like Lana Turner might instantly find fame and glory in Hollywood—or at least an opening role as a Bond girl.

And then?  Suddenly, 13 days into the trial, Victor sprung a surprise.  After all those years of denial, all those years of blaming everybody else for his troubles with the law, and now after a parade of  opening statement and witnesses, Paleologus stopped everything.

He had decided to make a deal with the prosecution, to plead guilty to the crime of murder.

And so this past July, Paleologus appeared in open court before the judge and agreed that he and he alone had caused the death of Kristi Johnson up on that rain-soaked hill in Hollywood.

The deal: He would escape the death penalty and get 25 to life with the possibility of parole but without the right to appeal. 

Morrison: All these months and years saying, “Yeah, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.”  In the middle of the trial, he suddenly says, “I did it”?

Det. Obenchain: I was shocked. 

Morrison: Was it important to the family to hear him say, “I killed your daughter”?

Det. Obenchain: It was.

Morrison: Did they get as much as they wanted in that respect?

Det. Obenchain: No.  I think they wanted to know why she had to die. I have a theory. I can’t prove it.  Only Victor knows if it’s true.  But I think he lured her up there for the purposes of raping her. He assaulted her, she fought back, he strangled her, went a little too far, she lost consciousness, he thought he had killed her and he dumped her over the hill.

Morrison: You think it’s even possible she went down the side of that hill still alive?

Det. Obenchain: According to the coroner the head wound was peri-mortem, which is on the brink of death, so she may have still been alive.

Morrison: It’s pretty chilling when you think about it that way.

Det. Obenchain: It is.  And it’s a completely callous act.

And we couldn’t stop thinking about that interview, long before the trial, in which Victor Paleologus danced around the issues telling us he’d never hurt Kristi or any one else for that matter.

Having pleaded guilty, he wasn’t dancing now. Seemed like a good to go back and see if we could get the real story.

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Death in the Hollywood Hills Remembering Kristi Johnson Morrison: A Hollywood dream-turned-nightmare Crime scene photos Did the suspect prey on other attractive women? Timeline: Paleologus' dark history Kristi's mom: A fountain of joy in Kristi's memory Victor Paleologus' letter to the judge Death in Hollywood Hills Section Front   Add Death in Hollywood Hills headlines to your news reader: