Chapters (64)
- PART ONE
- One
- Two
- Three
- PART TWO
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- PART THREE
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- PART FOUR
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- PART FIVE
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Fifty-two
- Fifty-three
- PART SIX
- Fifty-four
- Fifty-five
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
The shooter was indeed Eli Wyms, a forty-four-year-old housepainter from Inglewood. He was characterized in the arrest report as drunk, angry and suicidal. Earlier in the day, he had been kicked out of his home by his wife, who informed him that she was in love with another man. Wyms had driven to the ocean and then north to Malibu and then over the mountains to Calabasas. He saw the park and thought it looked like a good place to stop the truck and sleep, but he drove on by and bought a case of beer at a gas station near the 101 Freeway. He then turned around and went back to the park.
Wyms told the negotiator that he started shooting because he heard noises in the dark and was afraid. He believed he was shooting at rabid coyotes that wanted to eat him. He said he could see their red eyes glowing in the dark. He said he shot out the spotlight on the first patrol car that arrived because he was afraid the light would give his position away to the animals. When asked about the shot from eighty yards, he said he had qualified as an expert marksman during the first war in Iraq.
The report estimated that Wyms fired at least twenty-seven times while deputies were on the scene and dozens of times before that. Investigators eventually collected a total of ninety-four spent bullet casings.
Wyms did not surrender that night until he ran out of beer. Shortly after crushing the last empty in his hand, he told the cell-phone negotiator that he would trade one rifle for a six-pack of beer. He was turned down. He then announced that he was sorry and ready for the incident and everything else to be over, that he was going to kill himself and literally go out with a bang. The negotiator tried to talk him out of it and kept the conversation going while a two-man SWAT unit moved through the heavy terrain toward his position in a dense stand of eucalyptus trees. But soon the negotiator heard snoring on the cell line. Wyms had passed out.
The SWAT team moved in and Wyms was captured without a shot being fired by law enforcement. Order was restored. Since Deputy Stallworth had taken the initial call and was the one fired upon, he was given the collar. The gunman was placed in Stallworth’s squad car and transported to the Malibu substation and jailed.