Expendable For A Cause.

On March 28, 1985, Maxine and Vincent Zazzara were shot dead. The Zazzaras owned a pizza business managed by an individual named Bruno Polo. On the evening of March 28, Polo reportedly went to the Zazzara residence to drop off the daily proceeds from the pizza restaurant. He would later tell police the Zazarras did not answer the door, although the front door was open, the lights were on, and their vehicles were home. He returned the following morning and found the money he had left the previous evening had yet to be moved from where he had left it. At this point, he decided to enter the residence. He saw Vincent Zazzara lying on the couch with blood on his head. He ran out of the home and went to a neighbor’s to call Vincent Zazzara’s son. Apparently, they also called the police because law enforcement arrived at the Zazzara home shortly after this.

Maxine and Vincent Zazzara were both shot with a small caliber gun. Maxine’s eyes had been removed postmortem. Law enforcement found a pool of blood on the porch of a house across the street that was never elaborated upon. A bullet fragment was found on the bedroom floor, and jewelry was found in a bedroom drawer. A coin collection was found intact, and bags of money left by Polo on March 28 were present. A burglary had occurred at the Zazzara residence six weeks earlier, so law enforcement could not determine what had been stolen during this crime, if anything. Considering a coin collection, bags of money, and jewelry were found in the home, it doesn’t appear burglary was a motive.

Police determined the point of entry was a window at the rear of the house. A latent fingerprint was lifted from the window screen. A shoe print was found on a tub under the rear window of the point of entry. Other shoe prints found outside the house near the bedroom window were similar to the shoe print on the tub. Two different shoe print patterns were found in the same area. The Zazzara crime scene was the first scene where the Avia shoe print was found.

Per Gerald Burke, the inexperienced LAPD shoeprint examiner, shoe prints at the scene matched an Avia shoe size 11-½ to 12. LAPD firearm experts determined bullets found at the scene were fired from a .22-caliber firearm, the same .22-caliber weapon used at the Khovananth crime.

Vincent Zazzara’s son, Peter, told two different police officers (Deputy Russell Uloth and Deputy Paul Archambault) that his father had ties to the Mafia and was involved in the sale of narcotics. Peter Zazzara suggested that his father and stepmother may have been murdered because of this connection. Vincent Zazzara had been to prison on charges of fraud regarding a federal bank. Maxine had been his attorney. At the preliminary hearing, Judge Nelson prohibited this line of questioning, meaning the Mafia link was not raised at trial.

The Hernandezes strike again

What information did Richard’s attorneys present to dispute the prosecution’s case? Every time I address this question, my answer is the same! They did nothing and again conceded the ballistics and shoeprint evidence without making an objection. The defense presented no evidence on Richard’s behalf that would have challenged the faulty ballistics testing, the inaccurate, unreliable shoeprint identification, or potential third-party suspects.

Since the infamous Avia shoe was paramount in Richard’s trial, his attorneys needed to retain a shoe print identification expert, such as Lisa DiMeo, who examined the evidence in 2004 for Richard’s appeal. Unfortunately, no shoe print expert was retained for the L.A. trial. Had there been, this is likely what the jury would have heard about the alleged Avia shoe prints:

Rebuttal

Shoeprints: It was never proven that Richard ever had or wore any type of Avia shoe. Per shoeprint identification expert Lisa DiMeo, several different types of shoes could have made the prints on the yellow tub pictured above. The prints in the garden border were from Aerobics models.

Steve Strong, a crime scene analyst, reviewed all of the Night Stalker crimes and noted there was no distinctive pattern. This is what he said about the Zazzara crime:

Ballistics testing was conducted via bullet lead analysis, which is not a reliable method of determining firearms identification. Originally, the Zazzara bullets were compared to Okazaki and Yu slugs, but they were distorted beyond comparison. The three recovered bullets were mutilated at 70%, 80% and 95%.

Eventually, the prosecution expert, Edward Robinson, claimed the bullets matched the Khovananth slugs. This is obviously false evidence. See this post to understand how the prosecution linked the ballistics.

Maxine Zazzara’s eyes were not found in Richard’s parent’s home, his sister’s home, or in any of his belongings. They were never recovered. We have never heard anything about the fingerprint on the window screen, which leads us to conclude that it was not identified as Richard’s. If it had been, it would certainly have been used against him in court.

As is the case with all of the crimes Richard was convicted of, we are left with more questions than answers. The most significant one is who really killed Vincent and Maxine Zazarra. Why was law enforcement set on convicting Richard Ramirez of this crime? The evidence does not prove he murdered the Zazzaras. So who did? The police claimed the mafia link was investigated and the lead was not worth following, but how do we know it was investigated thoroughly? Ramirez, supposedly being the notorious cat burglar of L.A., surely wouldn’t have left behind jewelry, a valuable coin collection, or bags of money, would he? But someone did.

KayCee

Jan 25, 2023