Man Linked to Slaying Is Freed Again

A judge ordered a Tarzana printer released Monday after ruling that statements he made to police linking him to the slaying of an 18-year-old woman could not be used in court.

After a 4-day preliminary hearing, Van Nuys Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb dismissed a murder charge against Richard Heywood Jordan, 41. Without the statements, Bobb ruled, there was insufficient evidence to hold him for trial.

The evidence in dispute was Jordan’s statements to police after his arrest in the strangulation of Jacquie Ray Graham, whose boyfriend said he last saw her alive on July 19, 1987, as she got into a car on Sepulveda Boulevard at Vanowen Street. Her body was found the next day in bushes next to the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

License Traced to Jordan

Her boyfriend, Richard Hurst, 21, told police that he and Graham had gone to Sepulveda Boulevard so she could perform an act of prostitution, her first ever. The couple needed money to pay off a $46 debt, Hurst said. Hurst reported the license number of the car that picked up Graham, and police traced it to Jordan.

After his arrest, Jordan refused to waive his right to have a lawyer present during questioning by police, Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew W. Diamond said. But Jordan then told police in a tape-recorded interview that he would talk until he thought he needed a lawyer, Diamond said.

Detective Mel Arnold of the Los Angeles Police Department said investigators took what Jordan said as a waiver of his right to have an attorney present.

Jordan then admitted to police that he had picked up Graham for an act of prostitution and had been in the area where the body was found, Diamond said. But Jordan denied killing the woman, the prosecutor said.

Statements Ruled Inadmissible

Diamond argued before Bobb that Jordan’s statements were admissible because he made them willingly. But Bobb sided with Jordan’s attorney, Howard Waco, who argued that Jordan had requested a lawyer be present.

The case against Jordan was weak without his statements, Diamond said, because there are neither witnesses nor physical evidence linking Jordan to the killing.

Forensic tests show Graham had sex with Jordan, Diamond said. But the killing occurred hours later, leaving the last several hours of Graham’s life “legally unaccounted for,” Diamond said.

Jordan’s statements that he was at the Sepulveda Basin, where Graham’s body was found, are all that link him to the killing, the prosecutor said.

Diamond said it is unlikely that Jordan will be charged a third time. With Bobb’s ruling Monday, he noted, the case has been dismissed twice.

An earlier murder charge against Jordan was dropped last November after Hurst, the key witness against Jordan, failed to show up at Jordan’s preliminary hearing. Prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence without Hurst’s testimony.

Rearrested in October

Jordan was rearrested last month at a friend’s house in Tarzana after police located Hurst in Eugene, Ore., and he agreed to return to testify.

Diamond said prosecutors realized going into the case that the admissibility of Jordan’s statements was in “a legal gray area.” But they charged Jordan anyway, Diamond said, since the U.S. Supreme Court has eased restrictions on the inadmissibility of certain evidence.

“It wasn’t as though this was an involuntary statement,” Diamond said. “Jordan wasn’t coerced in any way.

“We don’t limit ourselves to prosecuting only airtight, ironclad cases,” he said. “We’re willing to go into court and fight. . . .”