Still Searching For Rachel: Detective Follows Leads

PART 6 IN A SERIES

By JACQUELINE PRIMO | Assistant Managing Editor

“I have some news for you,” LAPD Robbery Homicide Cold Case Detective Luis Rivera told the Palisadian-Post in an email on Friday, Jan. 22, “regarding the Alcala interview.”

The Post first spoke with Rivera in April 2015, shortly after Part 1 in the Post’s series on Rachel Ziselman’s disappearance was published on April 9. Rivera has had custody of Rachel Ziselman’s case since 2012.

Ziselman was 11 when she disappeared about 100 yards from her home on the 1000 block of Monument in the Palisades Village on Sept. 5, 1977. Because law enforcement and investigators could find no clues or evidence at the time, her disappearance has remained a cold case since the day she vanished more than 38 years ago.

“In Rachel’s case, they had a crime scene that contained little or no evidence. It was through the use of witnesses that detectives were able to establish a timeline of when she was last seen,” Rivera said.

“Since those early years, technology has allowed the police to quickly spread the word of a missing (or endangered missing) adult or child by using social networks, freeway overhead signs and even emergency broadcasts through cell phones. There was nothing like this available back in that time period, other than newscasts.

“The procedure before these advances was to establish a command post, [conduct a] systematic search of the neighborhood and other areas where the victim was last seen, [conduct] witness interviews and assign patrols to monitor and search. The process is somewhat the same now,” Rivera said, with the exception being that today “we can get word out to the public almost immediately through the use of the media. This reaches thousands, if not millions, of people within minutes of an incident.”

Additionally, AMBER Alerts are sent automatically to many smartphones, instantly reaching millions of people and alerting them to the most serious child abductions in their area.

Rivera added that today, a DNA database assists investigators in matching missing persons with unidentified persons found at other locations, and NAMUS (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) publishes information on missing and unidentified people nationwide.

“Our department places missing children, or adults who have special needs, at the top of our priorities,” Rivera said.
“They are vulnerable to becoming victims of crime and locating them in time is paramount to our mission.”

Much of this was not the case in 1977 when the blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl vanished. The mystery surrounding Rachel Ziselman’s unexplained and tragic disappearance penetrated the feeling of safety that Palisadians took for granted at the time, and has left a gaping hole in the hearts of so many who knew and loved her even to this day.

And just as residents of Pacific Palisades have never forgotten her, neither has law enforcement.

“We all share a responsibility to protect the people who are not able to protect themselves and our biggest concern is the safety of our children,” Rivera told the Post in a September 2015 interview.

“The LAPD and City of Los Angeles will spare no expense in finding and bringing to justice anyone who dares to commit a crime against our kids. We only wish it was sooner for Rachel. I will not let her case go forgotten.”

Rivera had already put these words into action when, in April of 2015, he and his partner collected a photo from former Palisadian Lisa Sutton (nee Kurtz). Sutton claimed the photo may have been taken by now-incarcerated serial killer and rapist Rodney Alcala, who was known for posing as a photographer to lure women and girls, on the Village Green less than one month before Rachel disappeared.

Sutton was attending Palisades Charter High School at the time. Her description of the man she said took her photo matched Alcala in the late 1970s. And to boot, Sutton told the Post she remembers the man introducing himself as “Rod.”

If LAPD could link Alcala to the photo through DNA evidence, this would put a now-incarcerated but then-prolific serial killer in the Palisades area when Rachel went missing, Rivera said, perhaps giving him a suspect.

The original color photograph, which Sutton had preserved in a photo album since it was taken and given to her by the photographer, was collected by Rivera and handed over to a forensics lab to be tested for fingerprints and swabbed for DNA with the hope that there would be a match to Alcala, or any other criminal already in the database.

On Oct. 22, Rivera told the Post two fingerprints were found on the photo, but on November 10 he added that no matches had been found.

“Next is to swab for DNA,” Rivera said.

He is currently awaiting results.

“Alcala was a person of interest in Rachel’s case because of an ongoing investigation at the time [of her disappearance in 1977] involving another female juvenile who Alcala was accused of killing: 12-year-old Robin Samsoe [in 1979],” Rivera told the Post.

Because Samsoe was a Huntington Beach resident, “that case was handled by Huntington Beach Police Department,” Rivera said.

“Alcala was eventually found guilty and sentenced to death.”

Alcala, who has been in jail since 1979, was eventually indicted or convicted in seven murders committed in California and New York, and remains a suspect or is accused in others.

He kept photographs and earrings, some known to have been property of his victims, in a storage locker in Seattle, Washington.

“I spoke to the detective from Huntington Beach, and he reviewed all photos and had all earrings tested for DNA with negative results for a match [with Rachel Ziselman’s DNA based off of samples provided by her parents, now deceased],” Rivera told the Post on Aug. 24, 2015.

Rivera’s Jan. 22 email to the Post included some long-awaited information on an Oct. 9, 2015 interview Rivera had with Alcala, who is currently a California Department of Corrections inmate on death row.

Rivera said he has wanted to interview Alcala concerning Rachel Ziselman’s disappearance since he spoke with Sutton last year and learned she may have encountered Alcala in the Palisades shortly before Rachel’s disappearance.

“Department policy does not allow us to provide information to the media (or public) on prospective witnesses. Since Alcala may be called upon as a possible witness if this case is solved, we can’t provide information on what he said [in the interview at Corcoran State Prison],” Rivera told the Post.

“However, I can relay that nothing new was obtained that furthered the case…There is no link between Alcala and Rachel’s case at the time. The photograph obtained [from Sutton] will be further processed for evidence. There have been no other leads in the case at this time.”

Rivera will be visiting Pacific Palisades in the coming weeks to do a walk-through of the area with the Post and visit locations relevant to Rachel Ziselman’s disappearance.

Keep reading the Post for continued updates on Rachel’s case, including the results of DNA testing on Sutton’s photo.

Read Parts 1-5 in the series at: https://www.palipost.com/?p=48064