Bed
.
Bosch scanned the entries until he came to a headline dated March 19, 2015:
Gang “Shot Caller” Arrested in Parks Murder
.
Bosch went back and clicked on the first story, figuring he could at least read the initial story on the murder and the first on the arrest before heading to his car for the drive downtown.
The initial report on the murder of Lexi Parks was more about the victim than the crime because the Sheriff’s Department was revealing few details about the actual murder. In fact, all the details contained in the report could be summarized in one sentence: Parks had been beaten to death in her bed and was found by her husband when he returned home from working the midnight shift as a Sheriff’s deputy in Malibu.
Bosch cursed out loud when he read the part about the victim’s husband being a deputy. That would make Bosch’s possible involvement in the case for the defense an even greater offense to those in law enforcement. Haller had conveniently left that detail out when he urged Bosch to look into the case.
Still, he continued to read, and learned that Lexi Parks was one of four assistant city managers for West Hollywood. Among her responsibilities were the departments of Public Safety, Consumer Protection, and Media Relations. It was her position as the chief spokesperson for the city and the front-line media interface that accounted for the “well-liked” description in the headline. She was thirty-eight years old at the time of her death and had worked for the city for twelve years, starting as a code inspector and rising steadily through promotions.
Parks had met her husband, Deputy Vincent Harrick, while both were on the job. West Hollywood contracted with the Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement services and Harrick was assigned to the station on San Vicente Boulevard. Once Parks and Harrick got engaged, Harrick asked for a transfer out of the West Hollywood station to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest with both of them working for the city. He worked at first in the south county out of the Lynwood station and then transferred out to Malibu.
Bosch decided to read the next story in the digital queue in hopes of getting more detail about the case. The headline promised he would:
Investigators: Lexi Parks Murder a Sex Crime
. The story, published one day after the first, reported that Sheriff’s homicide investigators were looking at the murder as a home invasion in which Parks was attacked in her bed as she slept, sexually assaulted, and then brutally beaten with a blunt object. The story did not say what the object was or whether it was recovered. It made no mention of any evidence that had been collected at the scene. After these scant few details of the investigation were revealed, the story transitioned into a report on the reaction to the crime among those who knew Parks and her husband, as well as the horror the crime had invoked in the community. It was reported that Vincent Harrick had taken a leave of absence to deal with the grief arising from his wife’s murder.
After reading the second story, Bosch looked back at the list of stories and scanned the headlines. The next dozen or so didn’t sound promising. The case remained in the news on a daily and then weekly basis but the headlines carried a lot of negatives.
No Suspects in Parks Murder, Investigators Drawing Blanks on Parks, WeHo Offers 100K Reward in Parks Case
. Bosch knew that going out with a reward was in effect announcing that you had nothing and were grasping at straws.
And then they got lucky. The fifteenth story in the queue, published thirty-eight days after the murder, announced the arrest of forty-one-year-old Da’Quan Foster for the murder of Lexi Parks. Bosch opened the story and learned that the connection to Foster seemingly came out of the blue, a match made on DNA evidence collected at the scene of the crime. Foster was arrested with the help of a team of LAPD officers at the
.
Bosch scanned the entries until he came to a headline dated March 19, 2015:
Gang “Shot Caller” Arrested in Parks Murder
.
Bosch went back and clicked on the first story, figuring he could at least read the initial story on the murder and the first on the arrest before heading to his car for the drive downtown.
The initial report on the murder of Lexi Parks was more about the victim than the crime because the Sheriff’s Department was revealing few details about the actual murder. In fact, all the details contained in the report could be summarized in one sentence: Parks had been beaten to death in her bed and was found by her husband when he returned home from working the midnight shift as a Sheriff’s deputy in Malibu.
Bosch cursed out loud when he read the part about the victim’s husband being a deputy. That would make Bosch’s possible involvement in the case for the defense an even greater offense to those in law enforcement. Haller had conveniently left that detail out when he urged Bosch to look into the case.
Still, he continued to read, and learned that Lexi Parks was one of four assistant city managers for West Hollywood. Among her responsibilities were the departments of Public Safety, Consumer Protection, and Media Relations. It was her position as the chief spokesperson for the city and the front-line media interface that accounted for the “well-liked” description in the headline. She was thirty-eight years old at the time of her death and had worked for the city for twelve years, starting as a code inspector and rising steadily through promotions.
Parks had met her husband, Deputy Vincent Harrick, while both were on the job. West Hollywood contracted with the Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement services and Harrick was assigned to the station on San Vicente Boulevard. Once Parks and Harrick got engaged, Harrick asked for a transfer out of the West Hollywood station to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest with both of them working for the city. He worked at first in the south county out of the Lynwood station and then transferred out to Malibu.
Bosch decided to read the next story in the digital queue in hopes of getting more detail about the case. The headline promised he would:
Investigators: Lexi Parks Murder a Sex Crime
. The story, published one day after the first, reported that Sheriff’s homicide investigators were looking at the murder as a home invasion in which Parks was attacked in her bed as she slept, sexually assaulted, and then brutally beaten with a blunt object. The story did not say what the object was or whether it was recovered. It made no mention of any evidence that had been collected at the scene. After these scant few details of the investigation were revealed, the story transitioned into a report on the reaction to the crime among those who knew Parks and her husband, as well as the horror the crime had invoked in the community. It was reported that Vincent Harrick had taken a leave of absence to deal with the grief arising from his wife’s murder.
After reading the second story, Bosch looked back at the list of stories and scanned the headlines. The next dozen or so didn’t sound promising. The case remained in the news on a daily and then weekly basis but the headlines carried a lot of negatives.
No Suspects in Parks Murder, Investigators Drawing Blanks on Parks, WeHo Offers 100K Reward in Parks Case
. Bosch knew that going out with a reward was in effect announcing that you had nothing and were grasping at straws.
And then they got lucky. The fifteenth story in the queue, published thirty-eight days after the murder, announced the arrest of forty-one-year-old Da’Quan Foster for the murder of Lexi Parks. Bosch opened the story and learned that the connection to Foster seemingly came out of the blue, a match made on DNA evidence collected at the scene of the crime. Foster was arrested with the help of a team of LAPD officers at the
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