"This Darkness Got to Give"

“Chaffee asked who the seven people were who were at the party.  Prew responded: himself, Chris Campbelll, Paul Harter, Mary, Greg, Dan, Robbie, and International.”  (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 112)

“[Officer Fred Eihl] spoke to Robin Van Heest and learned more about Mary and Greg from him.  He looked for the others who were at the party and eventually interviewed Paul Harter, Chris Campbell, Jim Prew, and Cho (who stayed on the ‘Dead On’ bus.)  (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 137)

Up to this point, I've given readers the following:

• Court Documents
• Newspaper Clippings
• Timeline from June to August 1985
• Timeline for the night of August 15/16
• Summary of prosecution's case at trial
• Summary of Justice Mosk's dissent in People v. Thomas

In this post I will add a list of individuals known to have been in or near Rainbow Village on the night of August 15/16.  First I will list those who gathered around Jim Prew's van, and then I'll list others mentioned in the court documents, Patricia Gioia's book, or the podcast.  This list may change as I learn more.

Robbie Van Heest*
Jim Prew

Chris Campbell

Paul Harter

Mary 

Greg

"Dan" [Adams]

Ralph Thomas

Paul Bergman

Tracy Scarborough

Vincent Johnson

Jong Cheol Cho

Lee Andersen

Claus Von Wendel

Thomas Medlin

Melody Medlin

Megan Barry

James Royster

Marie Marino

Vivian Cercy

Harry Shorman
Weston Sudduth

James Bowen

Of the eight gathered in and around Prew's van on the night of August 15/16, Officer Fred Eihl interviewed five of them, including Thomas.  During his testimony at the preliminary hearing, Jim Prew didn't mention Cho as being among the seven others, but he did mention "Dan." It appears that Eihl didn't interview "Dan."  I'm going to assume that this "Dan" was Dan Adams, as he knew Greg, and it's likely they'd have hung out together in the Village.  We do know that Rick DelVecchio of The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed Adams (aka "Dan Reynolds") on Sunday, August 18 because there's a quote from him in "'Deadheads' Had Been Lovers--Hunt for Clues".  Adams, identified as an "acquaintance," is quoted as saying, "he knew Greg from Wilton, Conn., where their families attended the same church.  Reynolds said Greg was about 19 years-old."  

One wonders if Fred Eihl and Dan Wolke read the local papers and followed stories related to cases they were working.  A photo of Adams accompanied the piece in the Chronicle, and with this they may have been able to use it to find and interview him.  Perhaps they did.  The information I have suggests they did not.

Public defense attorney, James Chaffee, was assigned Thomas's case in September of 1985.  Chaffee had access to police reports, and with these reports he could have put together a list of names that probably would've included many of those listed above.  One name that may have been missing from the reports was that of "Dan," but Jim Prew gave him that name during his testimony at the preliminary hearing.  Chaffee could have appointed an investigator to identify and interview persons named in police reports and, if necessary, travel to locate and interview witnesses.  But he didn't. Nope.  

While basically conducting an investigation on his own, Chaffee interviewed "permanent residents" of the Village and did not extend it to include members of the Deadhead community in the Village that night.  Thus Chaffee was not as informed about what happened on the night of the murders as he could have been had he canvassed everyone staying in the Village.  He relied solely on the questionable testimony of Vivian Cercy for a defense featuring an alternate-killer theory.  Chaffee pointed to the tall, skinny, blond man that Cercy saw talking to Mary and Greg as the alternate killer, but he lacked witnesses to corroborate Cercy's testimony.  For example, two Heads, Jong Cheol Cho and Lee Andersen, were named in the police reports.  Cho may have been staying on the same bus as Mary and Greg.  Cho could have given testimony that a tall, skinny, blond man named "Bo" was in the Village that night and that he spoke to "Bo" and another man, named Weston, the next morning.  Andersen could have testified that he saw a person in a pea-coat approach Cercy's car and speak to her.  Chaffee lacked this corroboration.  Instead he relied upon a photo of two liquor bottles found in the Village dumpster to demonstrate the veracity of his material witness's testimony:

"Chaffee pointed out also that his star witness, Vivian Cercey's [sic] testimony was corroborated by a photo that showed two liquor bottles found in the Village dumpster, where she said she saw the murder victims argue with a 'blond man' that night.  'This photo is a marker of [her] honor, her veracity.'" (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 162)

What?  

After reading the majority opinion and Justice Kennard's dissent in In re:  Ralph International Thomas, it's fair to say that James Chaffee possessed the resources to mount a good defense but lacked the will to use them. Here's an assessment of Chaffee's performance given in the majority opinion:

"Chaffee testified that he did not know how to contact anyone in the Grateful Dead community, nor was he aware that the band published an itinerary. However, Chaffee had a description, a nickname (“Bo”), and the resources of the Alameda County Public Defender's investigations unit at his disposal. The office's chief investigator at the time, Thomas Rauch, testified that he could and would have conducted a search with this information as a starting point. Though the Dead and their followers had left town by the time Chaffee was appointed, Chaffee had the license plate of the “Dead On” bus that had been parked in Rainbow Village the night of the murders and by checking its registration could have identified its owner, Deadhead Randy Turley, knew the Grateful Dead had come back to the Bay Area for one or more additional shows in the fall of 1985, presumably bringing with them itinerant Deadheads. Despite this, he never asked an investigator to conduct any search in the Grateful Dead community, nor did he ask anyone more familiar with that community how he might go about tracking down a Deadhead. A reasonable attorney in 1985, charged with representing a capital defendant [my emphasis], would have pursued what leads Chaffee had in the Grateful Dead community, the community from which the victims and Bo came." (In re:  Ralph International Thomas, p. 9)

The majority argued that, among those listed in the police reports, an investigator could reasonably find only Claus von Wendel and Jong Cheol Cho, and with the license plate, Randy Turley.  This suggests that they believed someone like Thomas Rausch couldn't have just read the reporting in the local newspapers and located Dan Adams.  Like Justice Kennard, I find that difficult to believe.

So to end this post, here's a list of the Bay Area shows the Dead played in the fall of '85.  Chaffee's team of investigators could have used this list to track down Deadheads:

09.10.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA
09.11.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA
09.12.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA

11.20.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA
11.21.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA
11.22.85 - Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland CA

12.30.85 - Oakland Coliseum, Oakland CA
12.31.85 - Oakland Coliseum, Oakland CA

*After reading Patricia Gioia's book more carefully, I've come to appreciate the part Robbie Van Heest played in helping the police begin their investigation.  For this reason, I've moved him to the top of the list.  More thoughts on him in a future post.