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A true story of San Diego Justice

June 15 2005

To whom it may be of interest

In your wildest dreams, has it ever crossed your mind that you could be imprisoned

for life for a crime that you had no part in? Sounds like some sort of bad TV movie,

and so the thought is passed on to something more pleasant. I suppose from time to

time we all experience nightmares but after all we have the police and our judicial

system to protect us, but what if an officer of the law and a ruthless deputy district

attorney decide to frame you for a murder?—Can’t happen? – This is exactly what

happened to my stepdaughter Cheri Lynn Dale. When Cheri was arrested, we went

with a court appointed attorney, after all the family knew of Cheri’s whereabouts at

the time of the crime. She was in our living room sound asleep on our hide a bed,

because her grandmother was staying in Cheri’s bedroom

The crime took place on Jan. 25 1990. At approxemently 8:30 AM, give or take 15 minutes, a girl by the name of Susan Denise Taylor had been beaten to death in a house where she had been a guest for several days. According to neighbors, the house was a center for drug trafficking and a hang out for troublemakers. Although the police had been summoned to the residence on numerous occasions, as per a neighbor in a news article, no arrests had ever been made. The news article went on to say that fights in the house were often carried out into the street.

One man, we will call DB, who had been a guest in the house the night before the murder, was a police informant, and had been asked by a detective to go to the house and find out what he could about the set up and the people involved. He said he left the house on the evening of the 24th then returned the next morning, around 9am to bring Susan an ignition switch for a car she was selling to one of the other guys who had been there the night before. He walked in an open door, and down a hallway only to find Susan’s mutilated body, in a pool of blood, in a back bedroom. DB, was a passenger in a van belonging to a man named Pablo. This man followed DB into the house where he too observed Susan Taylor’s mutilated remains, and surrounding environment. Pablo was no stranger to murdered young women, as he had discoverer the remains of yet another local girl, Linda Eveland, several years before . Bob Eveland , Linda”s , dad, was a good friend of mine. Many aspects of that murder were similar to that of Susan Taylor.

Susan was a beautiful young woman. Unfortunately she had made several enemies, due to her drug addiction and self serving ways. She was found to be 16 weeks pregnant and had an appointment to have an abortion. She had been thrown out of a relationship and had called her old boss near Dana Point the evening of the 24th to try to get her old job back. No one was exactly sure what that was. Her x boss was an older man, with whom they say she had a ” Father, Daughter” relationship. He was supposed to pick her up the morning that she was killed, to take her back to his place at Dana Point.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I’ll give you some background information so you can see how a young woman was set up to take a murder rap and make heroes out of a corrupt cop and an over ambitious deputy district attorney.

My name is Charles Caldwell. I married Cheri’s mother, Connielou, in 1982. Cheri her mother, myself, and my son Fred Caldwell, all lived at the same address. Having already raised one family, I now found myself with another 12 year old daughter to raise.

Cheri was a good kid, fun loving and adventurous. I had to brush up on my jr. high math again as well as other school subjects. I had retired from the furniture moving business and was working for the San Dieguito High School District.

By the time Cheri had reached 16 years of age she had made some really questionable acquaintances. She refused to break off relationship with them so her mother and I packed up her stuff and took her to live with her father. I saw no other choice as my employer would take a dim view of Cheri’s friends, on drugs, being in my house.

Cheri only stayed with her dad a short time. I guess they didn’t see eye to eye on many things. She started living with her friends, first one then another, coming home on occasion. Her visits with us were usually short, but always advantageous for Cheri, as her mother would always spring for some new clothing, boots, or what ever Cheri needed.

From this point on I will use false names for the list of characters in this story, except for our family.

The day before the murder, Cheri had to go to traffic court. She had stayed with us the night before to make sure that she was clean to go to court. On the way home from court she asked her mother to stop by a house in La Costa where she had learned that a telephone she had bought for her stepbrother Fred, for his birthday, had ended up. She had left it at one of her friends house, who in turn had traded it to Lisa Stand for some dope. Lisa was the renter of the house in La Costa Ca. In which only 16 hours later Susan Taylor would be beaten to death.

Lisa didn’t want to release the phone as she said they were using it, but Cheri was insistent and Lisa complied. When Cheri returned to the car, Connielou said she was almost in tears, as the shiny telephone which was shaped like a Porsche auto was missing a wheel and their was no plug on the end of the cord, only bare wires.

On returning home, Cheri left it on my desk so that I could fix it. That night everyone except me, powered out on ice cream and video’s I went to bed. At 5 am Connielou would get up put the coffee on and get ready for work. She worked at Torrey High School and would leave shortly after 6:15 she would always get me up before she left. I would have breakfast with grandma and leave for work shortly before 8am. The warehouse where I worked was only 3 miles away, and in those days I could be to work in less than 10 minutes.

As grandma had been using Cheri’s bedroom since her arrival from Texas, Cheri slept on the hide a bed in the living room, and since our dinning area and living room is one big room, Cheri was in full view of everyone, sound asleep. We were as quiet as possible so as not to awaken her. Fred didn’t get up till around 8:30 am

that morning, but as he can tell you Cheri is still sound asleep as he makes his way to the kitchen for his morning hit of dietary fiber.

Connielou had called home that morning, around 9:15am to make sure that Cheri remembered that they were going shopping at noon. Connielou was only working 3.9 hours at that time. Grandma had answered the phone and said Cheri had just ate two bowls of cereal and was in the shower. Grandma assured Connielou that she would remind Cheri of their shopping trip. Cheri excited about giving her brother Fred his birthday gift wanted to do it as soon as her mother got home before they went shopping. It was a real phone shaped like a red car a little Porche.

By 12:00 noon Connielou and Cheri had left our house on their way to Escondido to that big shopping center in the sky. In those days Escondido was the ultimate shopping experience.

That day however, for me was the same old work a day world, which I loved. When I came home from work that evening, I turned on the television to watch the 5 o’clock news. To my surprise, on the news previews, on a local channel is a murder scene in La Costa Ca. The biggest duck in the puddle is my old friend Richard Castenada who is now detective Castinada of the Carlsbad PD. I loved Richard, as I had had occasion to work with him at a local furniture business when he was just a kid. At that time I had many years of experience in the moving business and tried to help him all I could to learn the business. I was very proud of him when he got on the Carlsbad PD. I called my son Fred in, as he was closing up the shop, to watch the news, because Richard was going to be on.

The story was of a girl who had been murdered in La Costa Ca. Which is within the Carlsbad jurisdiction. First reports were that she had been shot in the head multiple times.

At the same time they aired the story, a picture of the front of the murder house was shown on the tv screen. Connielou, my wife, walked in and exclaimed, ” That’s the house Cheri and I were at yesterday to pick up Cheri’s phone.” As Fred and I were trying to hear the details, because the name “Susan Taylor ” was mentioned Fred became angry for Connielou’s interruption. It is very rare that the name of a victim is mentioned on the first news airing but they flat called out the name Susan Taylor. I had never met her but Fred had her on file at the antique shop, and was very interested to see if it was the same girl. It was. We thought no more about it

A month or so later , word got back to us that Cheri had been hiding in a closet, during a murder in La Costa. In my mind I was thinking Cheri has been blowing smoke or maybe there had been another murder in La Costa that we hadn’t heard about. Understand , Cheri would do almost anything to be noticed, and would never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. Other people had also heard the story that Cheri had been hiding in the hall closet during a murder in La Costa. The whole story had been made up by Cheri to get attention. Not really knowing the time of the crime, Cheri enlarged on the personal experience that she had several days before the murder. At some time on the week end before the actual crime , Cheri had gone to the La Costa house to buy drugs for some friends. Upon arriving she found the front door ajar and a violent fight in progress toward the rear of the house. Not wishing to get involved, she turned and left.

This story became that she was at the house at the time of Susan’s murder, several days later, jumped into the closet, listened to a fight then left. Cheri flat out made this story up. At “NO TIME” however did Cheri mention or say that she had witnessed or heard a MURDER, only a fight, during any of her interviews. That story was made up by the arresting officer, Det. Robert Dick of the Carlsbad Ca PD and assistant DA Thomas Mann.

By the time Cheri told the truth, that she was no where near the murder scene on 1 25 90, the case was being heard in a motion for a new trial. By then of course Cheri’s credibility was in the toilet. Judge David Sill was very adamant about the fact that Cheri was a liar, she had always been a liar and had no credibility. I guess the same went for me and my family, as he referred to us as possessing no credibility, although he knew none of us. At that point I suppressed my overwhelming desire to punch the old man in the teeth.

To say that I have never told a lie, would be a lie, I doubt there is anyone who could say they have never lied about something. Cheri on the other hand had lived with tweekers for about a year. People on any kind of illegal drugs become compulsive liars. I’ve never figured out if it’s the drugs that cause this condition or if it is an acquired habit.

Back to the story, about a year and a half after Susan’s murder Cheri comes waltzing into the house with her new husband, Jeff Filner. We were all stunned, as Jeff had probably the worst reputation in North County. He had a string of arrests that would put a Chicago mobster to shame. Besides selling drugs, his main source of income was SSI. His meth lab had exploded some years back and burned him all over his body, hence the help from our government. Jeff had been stocking Cheri for the better part of a year. Some of his antics included breaking the windows of guys cars who would hide Cheri, he also stabbed the tires of anyone who got in his way, including the local sheriff. He seemed to fear no one where Cheri was concerned. The marriage was short lived, As I recall it only lasted about 6 weeks, just long enough for Cheri to get the hell beat out of her , burned with cigarettes, and stabbed in the arm with Jeff’s knife. One guy that Cheri was visiting shot Jeff twice, trying to defend himself . The 9 mm. slugs went right through his body, and as soon as he left the hospital he took up his relentless stocking of Cheri again. Cheri’s explanation for the marriage was “I couldn’t get rid of him, so I married him hoping he would change”. The last beating She took from Jeff, she was running down the street bleeding and half naked, when a neighbor took her in and called the cops. We still have 2 letters from the former District Attorney offering Cheri help if she would file charges. The only help Cheri wanted was to get out of Dodge.

Connielou took Cheri to John Wane Airport in LA where she boarded a plane for San Antonio, to stay with her sister and her family. Jeff made several calls to the Davis home where Cheri was staying. David Davis, Cheri’s brother in law who happened to be a Bear County Sheriff, taped one of the last calls that Jeff made. In the call Jeff begged Cheri to return to Leucadia, Ca. When she refused he blew his stack. Among some of the threats that he made were that if she didn’t return he would kidnap our little granddaughter, who was staying at our house, Kill her mother and me, and burn our house down, but most of all he told her if she didn’t come back to him, he would hurt her real bad. We still have the taped phone call.

I had tried to stay out of the whole mess as much as possible. The whole scenario seemed like one of those bad dreams that I mentioned at the beginning of this story. One night shortly after Jeff had last talked to Cheri, My wife came into the bedroom, woke me up, and said,” You better get up, Jeff just called and said he was on his way down here to burn our house down”. Well as you can well imagine I became involved real quick. I didn’t know Jeff that well, but I knew what he was capable of doing.

I rolled out of bed, chambered a hollow point on top of a full clip in my old 1911 Colt as I heard his car roaring up to the side of the house. He jumps out of the car and screams,” I told you I was going to burn your house down now here I am”. There I stood in front of the house in my underwear and boots and I yelled back,” Start burnin you son of a bitch”. Very few times in my life had I ever been in that frame of mind but I had had Jeff and the whole situation up to my eye balls. If you have never experienced a man with a can of gasoline ready to burn your home, you may have trouble relating to the adrenaline rush I was caught up in. I’ve never quite figured out why, but Jeff jumps back in his car and spun his wheels getting out of there. I know he wasn’t afraid of me, but that was the last I saw of him till Cheri’s trial.

Jeff made good on one of his threats. Shortly after all of this Jeff was back in jail. While there he calls in a new detective, Robert Dick, to give him some information on the Susan Taylor murder. Sure enough, he tells the law that Cheri was implicated in the murder. There were a couple of items Jeff forgot to mention to the police, one, that he had been stalking Susan for months and, according to a couple of his acquaintances, had threatened to do her bodily harm, because she had him arrested for stealing her van, and two, that she had hung up the phone on him twice the night before she was killed.

Taking the word of a psychopathic, crazy, dope dealing, felon, detective Dick and DDA T. Mann and one other officer, fly to San Antonio to question Cheri.

Now on 3- 6- 90 long before Det. Dick was on the case, , Cheri was questioned at the scene of a drug bust in Cardiff. Long before the police arrived, several of the girls had been pumping Cheri full of Meth. All at the scene were taken to jail, all that is but Cheri. The girls had also been pumping her for information about the murder. She denied to them that she had been at the scene but of course the denial was cut out of the record that was presented by the DA in court 4 years later, as was any exonerating statement or occurrence. The case was given to Dick in early 1992. We have copies of the un Merandised, tampered with interview.

In San Antonio, DDA Mann and Det. Dick questioned Cheri for almost 5 hours. Hair samples and bite impressions and of course fingerprints were taken. This occurred on

6- 11- 92. Cheri’s new boy friend had accompanied Cheri to the police station. On the way there he emphatically told Cheri to be sure to give the same story she had given the officers in her 3-7-90 interview. BIG MISTAKE. Instead of leveling with the officers, she stuck to the story of hearing a fight and jumping in the hall closet. Granted , Cheri had lied in her interview about hiding in the closet, still no where in the interview did she say she was at the house on 1-25-90, the day of the murder, the day of the week, and nowhere did she say she heard a murder. She said she heard a fight. Of course the wording was all changed by Dick and Mann, to suite their case. Cheri, lying as she did, couldn’t hold a candle to the lies the officers told her, and repeated to the court. These facts can very easily be checked out , as we still have transcripts of all interviews and almost all court records.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Christmas of 92, Connielou and I spent in Texas. Cheri and her boy friend insisted we stay with them at least one night, to see what they had done to their house. Both of them worked for a remodel outfit and they had taken an old house and done wonders with it. We were very proud of Cheri, she had turned her life around and was working hard to accomplish something. She had given up drugs completely and had a real healthy attitude. She told us all about the Carlsbad cops showing up in June of that year to question her about the Susan Taylor murder. Knowing that they had taken hair samples from her to compare with a rope of blond hair found in the dead girls hand, made me a little nervous. When Connielou asked me why I didn’t like that, I told her, “With Cheri’s hair in their possession, they could very easily substitute the evidence hair with Chiri’s. Connielou said “O they wouldn’t do that”. Boy was she wrong. They not only tried it, they screwed up almost got caught, and had to try another approach to get a conviction. Ill get to that part in a little while.

. The reason for the great interest in Cheri came about on 2-7-92 it was 3 fold.

Dick talks to Jeff in prison . Jeff implicates Cheri in the Susan Taylor murder. Dick offers Jeff money to snitch. Its on the interview folks, I’m not making this up. At trial Dick denies this ever happened.
Dick searches a house in Leucadia where Jeff tells him that Cheri left a bag of bloody clothes. No clothes were found, just another one of Jeff’s lies.
Dick writes a police supplement stating that item number 15 on the evidence list is missing from the evidence room. Item 15 was the rope of blond hair found in the murdered girl’s hand. He sends the supplement to the man in charge. It is now a matter of record.
Now remember, these 3 very important things all happened BEFORE Cheri was interviewed in Texas.

Now we get to the good stuff. Dick, like a good cop, has Cheri’s hair compared to item 15, the long rope of blond hair found in Susan’s left hand, by the San Diego sheriff’s crime lab. Big problem—item 15 is still missing. On 6-26- 92 , the date of the test results.

The Sheriff’s Lab submits a finding, NO CONCLUSION COULD BE REACHED.

Suddenly Dick realizes his timing is bad, as item 15 hasn’t been found yet, so as soon as it was found,{in his unmarked car} by his boss, Dick hurries up and sends the 2 samples back to the same lab for the same test. Strangely enough now a scissor cut lock of blond hair now appears in item 15. Cheri’s hair sample is now shorter than it had been in the previous test by about the same length as the scissor cut locks now appearing in item 15.

Somebody, yes somebody had cut several inches from Cheri’s sample, put it in item#15, the rope of blond hair found in Susan’s left hand. BIG PROBLEM- At that point in time , hair roots were required to test for DNA. SOMEBODY had cut the wrong end of Cheri’s hair. The findings ,NO CONCLUSION COULD BE REACHED. This result was on 12-16-92. Same as it was on 6–26-92. In the arrest warrant the test conclusion had read

” SIMMILAR IN ALL RESPECTS”, a blatant lie. Little wonder Cheri was indicted.

Did this test result stop Dick and Mann? “O” Hell no, Now they were more desperate than ever to convict Cheri, because being caught tampering with evidence was the least of their worries. Carlsbad had spent too much money on this case and they needed a conviction. Dick sends the 2 samples to Cellmark Lab back East, for a DNA . None of the cops knew that roots were required to do a full blown DNA .They will tell you they did but they didn’t . The DNA test is now possible to be done on the hair shaft but not at that point in time. A full blown DNA test consisted of, DQA,-LDLR-GYPA-HBGG-D7S8-AND GC. Please don’t ask me what the symbols mean, but there are 6 different divisions to take into consideration to get the entire PCR test. They found that Cheri’s and the hair in the hand possessed the same DQA. One sixth of a full test. Just like millions of others do . This along with the lie that Cheri’s hair and item 15, the long rope of blond hair, found in the dead girls hand were “SIMILAR IN ALL RESPECTS” AS WRITTEN IN THE ARREST WARRANT, furnished probable cause to arrest Cheri. These people can lie to a judge and jury with no fear of reprisal. What in the world has become of our justice system?

On 8-23-93 Cheri was arrested in Texas by Dick and Mann. She refused to sign papers to transport her so she was held in county jail in Texas. Upon reading the arrest warrant ,2 weeks after she had been locked up the Judge laughed at the arrest warrant and said “In Texas, we couldn’t arrest anyone with this kind of warrant, much less hold them” He ask Cheri if he let her go if she would go to San Diego and face her accusers. Naturally she agreed to so on her own dime she returns to SD and is almost immediately arrested by Dick and Mann on 9-15-93.

After countless motions to continue, bail reviews, etc, Cheri is released on OR by Judge Rogers, after he was made aware of the material misstatements and just plain lying by DDA Mann and officer Dick. The judge said he wanted to follow this case, and if only he could have it would have not only set Cheri free, but it could have saved our family’s retirement savings.

Instead of a preliminary hearing as we all had expected, Mann slithered to the Grand Jury , who knew nothing of the lies, evidence tampering, etc, and got a hearing. Looking at the tainted evidence the Grand Jury indicted Cheri. Now she had to go to trial. O thank the Lord for our justice system.

Our next blow was we lost attorney Wadler .[real name]. He had done a great job, and was responsible for getting Cheri OR’D for almost a year before trial . The prosecution claimed a conflict of interest.

On5-2-94 the Grand Jury indictment was handed down. On 12-12-94, Cheri’s newly appointed attorney, Michel Barg, for reasons of his own, drops the perjury, and outrages conduct charges that Wadler had filed against Dick and Mann. No one ever figured out why this was done, it was just the start of a series foul ups by Barg. This man listened to no one. He had made up his mind how the case was to be handled. He spent a total of 30 minutes with his client, two 15 minute visits.

He and his investigator did pay a visit to our house, on 3-7-95. He became enraged when he found 2 certified return mail receipts laying on the piano. They were from 2 other attorneys who I had contacted trying to get them to take Cheri’s case, as we had no confidence in Barg’s ability to try a murder case, or for that matter any case.

Ironically, the phone rang while the 2 were there, and it was attorney James Dix from his home in Del Mar. He said that he would be glad to take Cheri’s case, as he had talked to Wadler, and became interested in it. Barg gets all huffy and tells us that it is to close to trial and that the Judge would never permit a change of attorneys. Apologies were made to Dix, as it looked like we were stuck with Barg. Later on, long after Cheri was convicted, the State swore that we never made any attempt to fire Barg, but we have a signed declaration from Dix that says otherwise.

Many other suspects had been questioned by the prosecution, and when ever possible their parents were also interviewed. Hear Cheri is almost ready to go on trial for murder, and none of her family have had as much as a phone call from the Carlsbad PD or the DA’S office.

Finally we called the DA”S office to try to tell him what was going on with one of his deputy’s and a Carlsbad Cop who had never contacted any of Cheri’s family members, and who were spinning out of control on the case.

The family had no idea that District Attorney Paul Spanks was so proud of his 98% conviction rate that he would allow any of his deputies to do anything in their power to get a conviction. He refused to talk to us but did send one of his investigators to our house to individually interview myself, Connielou, Fred, and grandma, Artheldra Hanawalt.

We all told about the same story but it cut no ice with the DA . After all if he was to be reelected he would need all the convictions he could get. Don’t get me wrong, I had never been anti law enforcement I had belonged to the Fraternal Order of Police in my home town, and had been a charter member for years, of California Sheriff’s Association. I don’t belong to any of those clubs anymore. After I witnessed what the California Court did to Cheri, I wanted no part of the system.

I’m going to throw this in at this point in the story. The first forensic test done in this case was done in March after the murder in January of 1990. It was a hair comparison test between the hair of Mike Barns and the rope of blond hair found in Susan’s hand –NO MATCH, then Item #15, the rope of blond hair, was compared to the hair of the victim.- NO MATCH. Susan had brown hair according to the autopsy report and Susan’s drivers license. Please keep this result in mind. This test was done long before Cheri was a suspect. From this you will get just one more of the lies made up by the prosecution.

After having been caught with false forensic tests, Doctored interviews, and outright lies in the arrest warrant and at the grand jury, Dick and Mann needed to get completely out of the hair evidence business, so Mann announces in the news paper that further forensic tests had proven that the hair found in the murdered girls hand was her own. This was 180 degrees opposed to the first forensic comparison. The article was published 3 days before the test at Cellmark was final. How could Mann have the results of the test before the Lab finished the test? Obviously “SOMEBODY” had replaced the long rope of BLOND hair found in the dead girl’s hand, evidence # 15, with a few short brown hairs from the victim. These were just a few of the misconduct shenanigans pulled by the State in Cheri’s case.

If the judge had half a brain he could have seen through all this deception, but he was so distraught finding that Cheri had lied in her interviews, his mind was made up from the git go. The trial was a train wreck for Cheri. Barg had promised 2 things to the family First , that he would not put Cheri at the scene, and second that at least one of the family would get to testify for Cheri. Well neither of these things occurred as they would interfere with his ingenious plan.

DDA Mann paraded a seemingly endless array of witnesses to the stand. , they all had one thing in common, No proof that Cheri killed anyone or for that matter that anyone had even seen Cheri that morning . The front of the murder house had been observed by 14 people that we know of, through their interviews. None saw Cheri or for that matter, any woman beside Lisa, approach the house on the morning of 1 25 90.

By contrast, 3 people reported seeing a Hispanic man arrive at the residence at between 8: 05 and 8:15am, in a burgundy colored car, California license plate no. 2cmg523, and go to the house . This had to be within minutes of the murder. His license plate number had been copied and it turned out to be a guy we will just call George . George had been one of the males at the house the night before the murder. Twice he had said to his buddy Robert, “Lets hit this bitch over the head and rape her” referring to Susan. The Carlsbad Police waited 2 months to interview George although they had all the information of his whereabouts on the night of I-24- 90 , and the morning of 1-25-90 . These facts provided several of the unanswered questions of investigative procedure of the Carlsbad Ca. Pd.

George was never served notice to testify for one very good reason, after his interview, he split for Mexico. As far as I know he is still there.

DDA Mann disqualified George as the murderer for the following reasons: George has a thick Mexican accent, and he supposedly left the murder house with Robert at 8:15 am.

What possible bearing on the case could George’s accent have, since DDA Mann has Cheri coming in through a window of a locked house, where there is only one occupant, Susan Taylor? The DA keeps mixing up his story, First he is disqualifying suspects because of their voice quality, that Cheri said she heard when she was at the front door, and heard a fight, then he has her breaking in while Susan is alone. This is only one example of DDA Mann getting it both ways.

O yes when Robert was first interviewed he said he and George left the house shortly after 6:am. This would provide ample time for George to drop Robert off in Vista and still allow George time to return to the crime scene at 8:05 as he was reported seen by 3 neighbors. At trial however after extensive coaching by Dick and Mann, Robert changed his departure time to around 8:15am. This of course could have been easily shown to be a lie if only Cheri’s attorney Barg, had asked Robert who the 2 men were in the blue van with an out of state license plate that arrived at the house at 7:00 am. The van reported by a neighbor who lived across the street, who just happened to be observing the murder house that morning. She gave the police 3 license plate numbers of vehicles arriving there between 7am and 8:30 that morning. The cops supposedly lost them.

James Babbot was eliminated by the prosecution because he said he wasn’t at the house.

James is a rip-off artist who had occupied the room where Susan’s body was found. He had been in Arizona several days before the murder. He had gone there to make some sort of drug deal. While there, he was arrested, and put in jail. Through an error at the police station, he was released, two days before the murder. He quickly returned to Carlsbad and found out that Susan had sold a very expensive electronic meter, which belonged to him. He was furious but the Judge, at trial, would not allow this information to be heard by the jury.

Although James was a full blown suspect, The defense never called on him. According to Bryan Stan, his daughter turned James away from her door early the morning of the murder. He wanted to come in and take a shower. He had fresh scratches on his face. The daughter was never called to trial by either the defense or the prosecution.

The prosecution never called on James for a very good reason. He could shoot down the state’s entire story of the events leading to the death of Miss Taylor.

The story which was made up by Det. Dick and DDA Mann was that Cheri had been at Gerri Mc Govern’s house since 5 am, where a meth party was in full swing. The morning of 1-25-90. Between 7& 8am Cheri was sent to La Costa to buy more drugs while everyone else waited there at the party for her return. This story was spoon fed to Gerri by Dick and Mann. At first she told them she couldn’t remember as it had been over 4 years. After the officers had repeated the story to her over and over, she finally got the message of what they wanted her to say. Gerri was facing big time in prison on mail theft charges so I guess she didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the law so she more or less went along with the prosecutions made up story.

As I said before Babbot wasn’t called to testify because in his interview he had told police that around 7am on 1-25-90 he stopped at Gerri’s to fix a bicycle tire. NO ONE WAS HOME AT GERRI’S except her dad. No Gerri , No big meth party, nothing but the old man who helped him fix a flat bicycle tire. Gerri, her baby, and her mother had gone out of town.

Babbot is such a liar that I would never have believed his story, but the old man gave the same story to the cops. I still have his interview. As you can plainly see if either of these guys would have testified at trial is would have shot big holes in the lies told by Dick and Mann.

Let’s move on to Jeff. Jeff was dropped as a suspect because he said he wasn’t at the murder house that day. He forgot to tell the cops that he had been stalking Susan for months wishing to do her bodily harm. He told this to several people, he even bragged to a couple of his friends that he had killed her. This was all denied at trial. Officer Dick also testified that he had never made an offer of money to Jeff for information on people he was associated with. This lie is very easily spotted as it appears in one of the interviews.

Jeff told of being at home with his mother and father and some relatives on the morning of the murder. He neglected to tell that his mother had left for work and that his dad had taken the relatives to the airport on his way to Pacific Beach where his business was located. All were gone from the house in plenty of time for him to get to the murder scene.

According to Gary Worker, who was left at Lisa’s to answer the phone while she was out, on the night before the murder, Someone named Jeff had called for Susan a couple of times without success, a few hours before Susan’s death.

Jeff contended that he was without a car, but there was a red Ferrari in the garage, which Jeff was forbidden to drive. This is a joke as Jeff did what ever he desired. His family was scared to death of him and had no control whatsoever of his coming and going. A lot of people think Jeff did the murder. Although he should be considered a prime suspect, I have my doubts about Jeff

The only fingerprints found at the scene were those of an Oceanside man who we will call James Mc . His print was found on the screen which had been removed from the window through which it was said the killer entered. James was dropped as a suspect because the prosecutor claimed that he was in jail at the time of the crime. One officer told them that James was not put into jail until several days after the crime, so the prosecutor changed his story that James was at home with his wife when Susan was murdered.

Mike Barns, the guy who bought Susan’s El Camino that morning, several hours before the murder, was the guy with whom she had been arguing most of the last 6 hours. For some reason after selling Mike the car, she hid the ignition keys. A violent argument had followed.

Mike was dropped as a suspect because he left the house at 6am, broke down in Oceanside and had witnesses that he was there on a side street. Some guy helped get him started on his way to San Clement. When the cops searched his apt. they found blood stains and a roofing ax . The blood was supposedly that of a dog, and his hair sample didn’t compare to that of the hair found in Susan’s hand . Of course this test was done at the same time that Susan’s own hair was found to be different from the “rope” of blond hair in her hand, evidence item #15.

Richard Ano had been squiring Susan around for several weeks before her death. He claimed to be in love with her. Susan was reportedly afraid of Richard as he carries guns and is a big time dealer. She would however borrow his car or use him in other ways.

Upon learning of Susan’s death, it was reported that Richard became violently despondent to the point that no one would ride with him.

Richard was eliminated as a suspect because he said he was in Vista at home at the time of the crime. At that, his story changed several times as to his whereabouts that morning.

Robert Ano, Richard’s brother was eliminated as a suspect because he said he had left the murder house before Susan was killed. Robert left with George, but the time line kept changing. First Robert tells that he and George left shortly after Mike, who had left at 6:00am. By the time he got to trial, with a little coaching from the state, the departure time was closer to 8:15am. As I said before, this couldn’t be true for a couple of reasons.

First, when Worker called Susan from Oceanside at 7:45am that morning, she told him that everyone had gone. This phone call is on the record. Next, two men showed up in a blue van with an out of state plate, shortly before 7: 00 am. We don’t know who they were, but they were not described by George or Robert. This is another fact that never surfaced at trial.

I guess it’s time we talked about Lisa. Lisa was the renter of the drug house. At trial she said she was doing $8000 a week gross, drug business. She was going with a guy we will call Kevin B. To try to put her story and time line together, according to her interviews and trial testimony is like trying to put 3 jigsaw puzzles together when all the pieces were mixed and half were missing. In her first interview she told police the last time she saw Susan alive was at 5:00pm on 1-24-90. While she was in prison a little while later, she leveled with Dick and Mann and told them that she last saw Susan at around 4:am the morning of the crime. At the grand jury the time became 8:oo pm on the evening BEFORE the murder although the prosecutor knew this time line was wrong. Time lines were reinvented throughout case, from arrest to conviction, to suite the prosecutor. Mann and Dick were determined not to let the truth stand in the way of a conviction. I couldn’t figure out why these guys would lie about seeming trivial times and events, at the start of the trial. Later on the purpose started to become clear, these smaller things would later back up times and events of their cooked up stories soon to be reviled.

Lisa was in and out of her house several times the night before. Around 4:am the morning of the murder, she and her friend Kevin B went to a friend’s house where they were supposed to spend the night. At 8:am the next morning Lisa called her house to talk to Susan. This call was the prosecution’s bench mark for other things to follow. One big problem, Lisa had told so many lies in several interviews, How can we depend on this time as a bench mark?

According to Lisa she talked to Susan about the events of the night before. Lisa, Kevin, and their friend Sandy, who they were visiting, all had something to eat, and Lisa decides to go back to her house to retrieve a newspaper which she had marked off some apartments for rent. All of Lisa’s furniture had been put in storage, so she was looking for another place to set up her operation. God help her new land lord.

At the grand jury, Lisa testified that she left Sandy’s house at 9: 45 am and that she only made one trip to her house. At trial it was confirmed by 2 neighbors that they saw Lisa arrive at her house at 10:38am. PROBLEM- One Carlsbad cop testified that he had gone by Lisa’s house at 10:05am and the overhead garage door was closed., Lisa, on the other hand made a point of telling that when she arrived at 10:38am that she found the overhead garage door open between 3 and 4 feet, and closed it. Somebody was mistaken.

Lisa had reported that she called 911 at 10:50am. Another problem, NO ONE ever reported seeing an ambulance or a fire truck at the scene. On any 911 call around here, the paramedics and fire truck nearly always arrive before the cops. Could Lisa have somehow called the police dept. and had the call patched through to a friendly cop? The cop arrived in less than 5 min.

We could go on all night about little Lisa, and the twisting of facts, but I believe that just from what you have read here, you have an idea of her credibility.

Several questions about the wholesomeness of the local constabulary. How did the one cop know that there were 2 phones at the house? The morning of the murder, there was only one—You see Cheri had picked up the second phone the afternoon before the murder. Did he have prior knowledge of the house? Next Why did pictures [of which dozens were taken] fail to show tools “scattered all over the garage” This was alluded to numerous times by DDA Mann at trial.

No pictures of tools were ever produced. Bryan Stan said he had taken all of his tools, and another cop said that he specifically looked for tools, and saw none in the garage. Next,— The officer in charge of the investigation said there was no sign of forced entry. No pry marks on the window. How do you pry open an aluminum frame window which is kept locked at all times and has a stick on the inside slide, without leaving pry marks? Why was no mention ever made of the broken striker plate on the bedroom door jam. It would take a pretty hefty man to break into a locked room with Susan obviously trying to hold the door shut. Check the body position. —Next How come only one of the three license plate numbers that were copied down the morning of the murder, by a neighbor, surfaced from the police? Could the other two have been cops who were friendly with Lisa ? Next,— The bite marks. Much ado about nothing. These marks were seen by two people on Susan’s arm, several days before she was killed. The Coroner said they could have been made day’s before the murder, These facts were totally ignored by everyone, including Cheri’s attorney.

One other very interesting aspect of the case was the way Cheri’s interviews were changed by the prosecution. Out of the dozens of interviews of people connected to the case, none were found by our family to be tampered with. The defense investigator told us that when he tried to compare Cheri’s interview to the tape recording he would keep getting lost. This raised a red flag. My son Fred spent over 1 month staying up almost all night playing the tape of Cheri’s interview and comparing it to the written transcript. He found that not only had Cheri’s words been changed, but some 30 pages had been transposed and numbered as though they were in the correct order One example was , Mann asked the question,

“When you went to the front door THAT morning, could you hear Susan talking on the phone?” At the top of the next page Cheri’s answer was “NO” So another page was selected by the prosecution that had a “YES” at the top of a page and was substituted for the previous page and was numbered as though it belonged there

No one picked up on this page shuffling, not Cheri’s attorney not the investigator or of course the Judge. Cheri had been found guilty and locked up for quite some time before the shuffling of pages was discovered. Portions of the video taped interview were played for the jury. Naturally, any exonerating statement made by Cheri was deleted from what the jury heard. At breaks in the tape while Detective Dick was on the stand, the prosecutor would ask leading questions, and like a good cop everything would be verified by Dick. The judge explained that he had not read the interview, but that the prosecutor’s version was good enough for him

Back to the broken striker plate on the bedroom door where Susan was killed. NO ONE, not the prosecution, nor the defense ever mentioned it. To me, this is one very important aspect of the case. Cheri weighed about 110 pounds. I’m not saying that she would not be able to break out the striker plate, by throwing her full weight against the door, but if she did it would defiantly leave some very obvious marks on her upper arm and shoulder. Two days after the murder Cheri was driven to Los Angles, about 100 miles, to be a model for a skin care seminar. There were 4 other women in the car with Cheri. None saw any marks on Cheri’s arms or shoulders. She wore only blue jeans and a tank top.

Actually, as I said before, It would take a good sized man to break out the striker plate and over power Susan holding the door shut. From the pictures of the position of her body, this is exactly what happened.

Among many questions the family was asked was ” If Cheri didn’t do it why didn’t you get up there and tell them?” This is a perfectly logical Question. The family was not allowed to testify at trial although we had been promised that we would. The ingenious attorney Barg saw to it that Cheri’s side of the story was never presented to the jury.

Last , but far from least, according to a jury member , the reason she was convicted was because she said she was there. Among the dozens of letters I have written to people in power, was one I wrote to William Wood,[real name] Asst. Attorney General. I asked him to show me in any court record or interview where Cheri said she was at the scene of a murder or at 2441 Torrejon Pl. on 1-25-90 or that she was there on a Thursday, the day of the murder.

He had asked for proof of falsified forensic tests, perjured testimony by the prosecution and arresting officer and evidence of tampering with Cheri’s interview, so I sent the proof to him.

This was his response :

Dear Mr. Caldwell:

I have received letters you wrote to me [dated2-14-00] Mr. Scones dated [2-15-00]and judge Gill[dated 2-22-00] Based on their content, I feel I should caution you in two respects.

First you should understand that in considering the allegations, you have made and the materials you have sent, it is not my intent to disprove your allegations to your satisfaction.

Second, while I appreciate the priority you attach to the case due to your relationship with the defendant , I have a very large on-going case load which limits the time I have for reviewing your materials. Until I have had the opportunity to complete my review of your materials, as well as the relevant portions of the appellate record, your efforts to draw inference from the passage of time are misguided.

Sincerely

Bill Lockyer

Attorney General

William Wood

Supervising Deputy Attorney General

At this point in time almost 6 years have passed. I have become smart enough to realize I will never hear from any one in this sorry office. Several years ago I was asked how many people I had written to get help for Cheri. At that time it was over 40. The response in each case was very similar- “It’s Not MY Job”

Although I know I have a slam dunk case against the state of California, Trying to get help to reverse Cheri’s conviction seems next to impossible. After over 10 years of trying I am still butting my head against a stone wall. Occasionally we do get a glimmer of hope.

None of the local attorneys want to buck heads with the establishment. I presented Cheri’s case to our local Innocence Project. I was turned down flat. Come to find out several years later, Asst. DDA Mann, is an alumni of their law school, and Judge Gull [who was chosen for the case by DDA Mann] was an instructor at the same school. Talk about a stacked deck.

I don’t have too many years left on this earth, but this miscarriage of justice is now an obsession. I still have a couple of avenues to follow up on. Any constructive suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie Caldwell

1234 N Coast Hwy 101

Leucadia, Ca. 92024

[760] 944-7350

The good news is that Judge Norman R. Stone III is up for re-election in 2008 and we need to get rid of him; I think deep down he wants this too. I am sure he has kept his job because most people don’t do their homework on the candidates to find out how crazy he is. People just want to be tough on crime and with a name like “Stone” he should be. I urge the public to vote for anyone but Judge Norman R. Stone III in 2008.

Cheers
RC Kuner

Jenny W.

To be fair and equal, justice should be superimposed on law and when that fails, the good citizens of our country should endeavor to change our laws. What are our options?

Who metes out justice to the vigilante justice givers???