Family finally gets justice 12 years after teen, mom, mom’s boyfriend are killed

Hello and welcome to Crime Watch Daily Updates I'm your host Anna Garcia in 2016. I took a trip to Pinon Pines, California, which is a small community near Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley accessed by a very long highway and with panoramic views of the mountains. was there to investigate the brutal murders of Vicki, 53, along with her 55-year-old

boyfriend

, John Hayward, and Vicki's daughter, Becky, 18, on September 7, 2006, all three were shot to death and set on fire, firefighters and sheriff's deputies found Vicki and John's body inside the house Vicki had been shot in the head John in the chest now outside Becky's lifeless, charred body had been left in a wheelbarrow was so burned that the cause of death could not be determined.

Fingers soon pointed to Becky's ex. Her

boyfriend

Robert Pape and her best friend Kristen Smith, my friend Luis Bolaños, whom everyone knows from True Crime Diary, the podcast, join the investigation and thanks to him thousands of clues flooded in, many of which pointed the finger at Robert Pape Lewis. He believes that Becky was the main target of the homicide and John and Vicki were just

killed

as collateral damage. It took seven

years

for Robert and Kristen to

finally

be arrested and charged with murder, and six months later in October 2014, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office dropped the charges against the men, the district attorney's office He offered little explanation for his decision, saying only that legal issues had arisen during the grand jury proceedings against Robert Pape, so it was appropriate to ultimately dismiss charges against both men now even though prosecutors dropped the charges.

Chris and Robert were not free. However, they were arrested again in 2016 and then stood trial in April 2018. Robert and Chris were found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in Vicki's death and John Robert was found guilty of second-degree murder in connection with After Becky died, but Chris was acquitted of that charge, they were both sentenced to life in prison without parole and appealed their convictions. Now let's take a look at the massacre that shook this small community a long drive down Desert Mountain Road, a quiet stretch of road that leads. back in time to a very dark place, this is where the clues ended, yes in fact you can still see the police tape from the crime scene, the first time I saw this, wow, concrete, but a long time ago, this was the location of a massacre, whatever she saw.

That scared her a lot, she was attacked, they posed her, they set her on fire. My sister is like old dolls lying on the floor and you think about all the moments you had with the people you loved and we are no longer here. There already before the ashes before the flames it seems that you are going to get married Becky Friedly your mom Vicki Friedly and mom's boyfriend John Hayward lived high in California's Coachella Valley in a secluded neighborhood called Pinion Pines my mom was a free spirit she was a hippie at heart she really had such a kind heart and at 53

years

old that kind hippie heart seemed full my sister seemed devoted to John um he was a very good father and it seemed like everything was at peace then there was the youngest of Vicki's four daughters, Becky. kindly and if there was anything about Becky, the first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth is how fun she was, she was a live wire, she embraced life with both arms outstretched, I'm super fun, happy, she enjoyed every room she liked and was the loudest and funniest person ever and in many ways after Becky's mother divorced her biological father Ron, she seemed to be the glue that held the scattered

family

together, but it wasn't always easy to stay connected living in pinion.

Pines, miles above the city, were the The average number of bars on any cell phone was zero, which we used to joke about when we were younger, that you know you could literally stand on their doorstep and yell and the neighbors They can't hear you now, it's no joke if there was screaming. That night no one heard them only the howl of the fire trucks hours later and my mom called me and told me there had been a fire at your sister's house and I remember thinking maybe Vicki left the oven on or I thought what if?

Maybe they weren't at home. but it was no accident and everyone was at home within the smoking ruins of the house. Investigators find the charred remains of two bodies. Vicki Friedly was shot in the head with a .40 caliber pistol next to her fussy boyfriend, John, who lay dead from a shotgun blast. the chest was very violent it was shocking and got worse outside the house found burned in an old wheelbarrow was the lifeless body of 18 year old Becky severely burned to determine the exact cause of her death three lives reduced to ashes in one The night was left devastated I think I just cried uncontrollably I couldn't think straight I just wanted answers I wanted to know what happened shortly after the triple homicide Sheriff's deputies questioned one of their own A former deputy retired just a year before Vicki Ron's ex-husband, my Mom married Ron when I was six, once she married Ron he got a job as a sheriff's deputy, we packed up and moved.

Ron had built that house in Pinion Pines with his own hands and with another man living there with his ex-wife some couldn't help it but Wonder Ron was questioned by the police and reportedly even passed a polygraph but some still thought that there could be a connection. I think the biggest thing in my mind was that Ron had arrested someone before who really had a grudge. against him she left prison thinking he still lived there and then showed up and

killed

whoever was there. Police investigated that theory, as well as a possible drug connection with her boyfriend John, but as investigators dug a little deeper, it became disturbingly clear that there was really only one intended target - well, I think Becky was the focus of this one. homicide, it was very likely that John and Vicki were collateral damage private investigator Luis Bolaños, who used to work on the force with Ron and knew that Freedley had been following the case since day one.

Why do you say Becky was the intended target of this crime? They put Becky in a wheelbarrow in front of the house and in a place at the end of the driveway. We call that posing and the purpose of posing is to send a message. It makes it very personal for the first responders for the

family

that that was our goal, we weren't here for John and Vicki, but Becky was our goal and for those who knew Becky best there was more reason to believe that this crime was too personal when She was young, maybe three or four years old, she ran into her sister in the kitchen, who was carrying a saucepan of oil like it was burning oil and it spilled on her chest, so Becky had burnt scars all over her chest and that was something that everyone who knew. she knew about her burn and her scars Daniela and many others say that the incident left Becky with a known lifelong fear of being burned, so what do you think about the fact that she was set on fire was a direct hit to Bucky?

It was an attack on her, yes, so who was her attacker? The police questioned several people, but no arrests were made, there was no progress, it seemed like at all a year, a year and a half, the case went cold, it just stopped, but why do you think this case went cold? so fast, I don't understand why they called us, I don't think I should have done it and he wasn't the only one, how mysterious was this mystery after all, it took me almost 30 minutes as soon as I found that out. It was a homicide that I learned about after doing some research, it became clear to investigators that the real target of the homicide was 18 year old Becky Friedley.

They put Becky in a wheelbarrow, put accelerator on it, set it on fire and abandoned her. she posed to send a message to everyone there and they responded that they committed this crime, there is no doubt about it, there is no doubt about it, but who would want the beloved

teen

ager to die so much? Oh, it took me almost 30 minutes, I knew almost instantly. As soon as I found out it was a homicide, I knew Robert was involved, she's talking about Robert Pape, the guy Becky dated in high school, say hello to Robert, hey guys, she had a big crush on him, she loved his personality and just fell in love with him.

Quickly for almost a year they had a great relationship. Robert got Becky a corsage, but like many high school relationships, this one ended after graduation, but it was a clean break. It didn't seem like Robert would accept my sister moving on. He seemed to be possessive, there were a lot of strange phone calls and a lot of things where he would say you know no one else can have you or you know what you think and he would get jealous and that's not all so something very important happened here. What was that? Well, the day before the triple homicide.

Becky worked at Danny Sarah as a waitress. At some point during that day, Robert Pape went to Denny's and had a very loud verbal exchange with Becky. Very hot. He was very angry about something. Becky's cousin Daniella says Becky called her on the way home that night and told her everything about the confrontation. She also said that Robert was not alone. She had told me that her and Robert's military friend came in and that he was harassing her in the restaurant. That friend was Christian. Smith Christian was very good friends in high school with Robert Pape and after talking to family and friends it was very obvious that when they were apart they behaved better but when they were together their behavior was out of bounds as Daniella Becky had agreed. going on a hike with the kids the next night in an apparent attempt to get them to leave, it was the last conversation she had with her cousin and then you lost and then she lost service, you lost the for sale sign, yeah it seemed like such critical information So why didn't anyone act on it?

I told my mom right away, I mean, that same night and she told investigators, but I was never interviewed for seven years, no one contacted me, that's where Luis Bolaños really comes in, this is where Becky. lost cell phone connection and his phone call with his cousin Danielle discussing the Danny incident after so many years without answers Lewis decided to take on the case pro bono, we came up with a game plan that we wanted to achieve and highlight and we knew we needed to get it across this story to the public immediately and share some of the brutal facts.

One of the first things he did was post shockingly graphic images of Becky before and after the crime on Billboard. Was it about getting more information or applying pressure? about the suspects, all of the above, but after so much time, would it work? We ended up getting over 3,000 phone calls. 3,000 phone calls. Yes, ma'am, wow, one of those tips came from none other than Becky's close cousin, Daniela. zermano and you said the name Robert um and this is Robert only at Denny's or not. I'm sure Robert was with a friend at Denny's in this recorded interview with Lewis.

Daniella is

finally

able to tell her story about the last phone call with Becky and the explosive confrontation that night before she was killed, she talked to me about my conversation with Becky and then asked me to pass it on to investigators and that's when it started. to speed up again and simply breathed new life into the situation. research and Lewis is surprised at how little had been done previously when we got involved. Papen Smith was interviewed but very briefly and at some point during their interviews they both refused to talk other than that they wanted their lawyers years before, apparently both Christian and Robert told the officers. that they had canceled the walk with Becky and were nowhere near her house when the crime occurred, but Lewis had a theory that they lied about their whereabouts, their phones and their cell phones were turned off during the same period of time that their whereabouts cannot It must be explained that the beings on the cell phones show them going up Highway 74, they stated that they never went up that way, that they went to church, that they went to church at night, yes, so their alibis do not They held up, no, the alibis didn't hold up. and there was much more at the scene, about 70 yards north of the residence, someone dropped a business card and on that card they found Christian Smith's DNA.

Prosecutors never made an arrest, but Lewis was more convinced than ever that he was on the right path. and he was about to turn up the pressure more than half a decade after the unsolved murders of John Hayward, his girlfriend Vicki Friedly and his daughter Becky Friedly. Suspicions, at least unofficially, were directed at Becky's ex-boyfriend, Robert Pate, and Pape's friend, Christian Smith, but there were no arrests. were ever made, so private investigator Luis Bolaños decided to start his own investigation and then, to make sure the case really received the attention he deserved, he reached out to Hollywood,especially in unsolved cases, people tend to lose interest and tend to forget the things they have.

It happened, but if you can come and do a reenactment of the crime, then that's something that

gets

people's attention. The men decided to produce a re-enactment based on police reports and what they believed happened that night was a surprisingly realistic depiction of the chilling scene that unfolded. Televisions across the country and even more chips started rolling, most of them pointing directly to Robert's role, so Lewis decided to talk to the man in person. Robert, yes, I'm Lewis. We decided to go to Robert Pape's door and knock on it during the day. with the Hollywood movie The Encounter and make it a passive encounter and we were basically there trying to find people who knew how to support High School and work on this tribute video, which was positive because we wanted to get the story out to anyone and everyone and get it out there. touching, but was there really a tribute video or was it just a setup?

Yes, I see friends of his anyway in the past just to see a few hours of butter. Well, I asked him, you know, what was your last meeting with Becky, you know, I remember the last time he saw her and what she said. It's true, I guess that made up for some time ago. Do you remember? I mean, that's not bad if I remember the pretty special lessons that you couldn't really remember. If I just couldn't remember it and thought well, how can I remember you guys dating for so long? She was important to you. They know she died from a homicide.

So what did she say about Denny's? Do you know anything about some kind of discussion? I've had a few of these days about anything, he denied any encounter at Denny's, that ever happened, there was never any kind of shouting match, which we knew was wrong after dodging a few more questions. Robert ends the conversation, but Lewis leaves satisfied and you played with him, yes we did, you put the pressure on, we did it, we put the pressure on him, so the pressure is now getting very intense, the media scrutiny, everyone They talk about it, the billboard, it's like everywhere now, does that change anything you do in a surprise seven move?

Years after the triple homicide in Pinion Pines, it seemed that District Attorney Paul Zellerbach was finally ready to move on and Christian Smith were under arrest, so they were arrested and what were they charged with, they were charged with triple homicide each one of them, but that was It's not the end of the story, although sometimes the simplest conversations end up meaning a lot. The last time I spoke to my sister it was her nephew's birthday and I said: You know? Could you take the day off? You know, come here for her birthday and then she said it wasn't going to be the last one she was going to and I said you never know, a few weeks later, eigh

teen

-year-old Becky Friedley was dead, the third and investigators believe that was just the intended victim in a brutal triple homicide and then, seven years after the horrific murders, Becky's ex-boyfriend Robert Pape and his friend Christian Smith were under arrest, so when there were finally arrests in this case, did you think that now we would get

justice

?

I did, it was one of the happiest days of my life when they were arrested and then the news followed that they were going to be let go, that's right, just six months after the arrest and with little warning all charges were dropped and the children They were released these were not the right guys, we cried, my mom, my sister and I called each other and we just officially cried. The prosecutor's office claimed there were procedural problems with the grand jury that indicted the two, but private investigator Luis Bolaños believes there may have been more to Play Espera because things are about to get a little crazy, they were in custody for a few months, so now they are preparing for the preliminary hearing and there are a lot of motions and one of the motions filed by one of the attorneys for the The suspects subpoenaed the district attorney himself, Paul Zellerbach, waiting for them to call to the district attorney to testify about this case or anything relevant to it and it is almost unheard of for the district attorney to come to testify, but Zellerbach never took the stand because it was scheduled a few days before.

In order for him to appear, the case against Papon Smith was dropped. The first time Athena came to mind was: Paul Zellerbach is doing this so he doesn't have to testify. He never had to take that stand, but why was the district attorney subpoenaed in the first place? Lewis. He says it most likely had something to do with Zellerbach's tough re-election campaign when something happened that had no relation to the murder, but would affect the entire outcome. Zellerbach was caught on video tearing down the campaign signs of his opponent who was going to testify on a Monday.

The Friday before he testified, he let these two clowns go and turned them loose, but as much as Lewis and others felt about Robert and Christian, did they? Could there have been other suspects? So who is Javier García? Javier was a really sweet guy, really kind, they were the best. Becky and Javier were best friends, just friends, depending on who was talking. Javier was very, very in love with Becky and Becky was not in love with Javier and one more thing she did was Javier's cell phone. He painted in the area at the time of the homicides.

Javier told the police. It was because he was driving to Becky's house to see if she wanted him to accompany him on that walk with Robert and Christian, but after she refused, he turned around and drove home, whatever the case was, it was enough so that prosecutors would ask Javier to testify as a witness. witness before the grand jury indicting Robert and Christian, but this is where things take another turn. Well, Javier's father works for the Riverside County District Attorney's Office at the time, Javier's father would reportedly only allow his son to testify if she was granted immunity.

He could have simply been a very protective father who wanted to protect his son, in fact Javier was confirmed to be miles away at home when the murders occurred and was ruled out as a suspect even though D.A Zellerbach refused to grant immunity, so Javier never testified and As if that wasn't crazy enough, remember that incriminating video that got Zellerbach arrested. The individual who surprised him tearing down a campaign sign was Javier García, an elderly father. Javier's father, who works for the district attorney, receives a video of the district attorney tearing down campaign signs which ultimately

gets

the district attorney arrested and convicted of a misdemeanor.

This is crazy, why is it so important to this case? Well, the DA responded that the reason Javier Garcia's superior was following him and trying to find something he was doing wrong is because he was upset that he wouldn't give immunity to his son Junior, that's what Zellerbach said , that was his initial response, yes, but getting lost in the political circus was the very real fact that three people had been savagely murdered and, fortunately, no one was facing Justice. about to change with the election of a new district attorney, the three victims of this crime were John Hayward, Vicki Amilly, and Rebecca, loosely known as Becky.

Mike hestrin takes over as the new district attorney. Mike Hesteren vowed to pursue this vigorously and see if he can come up with something. There is enough evidence to re-arrest these guys, and the most important thing is to get to the truth, whether they deserve to be arrested or not. One of the first things investigators did was re-examine the original evidence against Pape and Smith using updated technology, including that business card with Christian Smith's DNA on it. DNA testing had improved so much that there was a 100 million to one chance that the DNA on that card was definitely Christian Smith, whereas before it was something like 323,000 to one, so he took it off the table and then this in the online messages sent. long before the murders between Robert and a friend she asked for help with a bad relationship Robert writing as Buttercup 1000 says if you know where she lives we can burn down her house professionally she answers it's true, you're a little pyrotechnician so Pape answers I've been through a package After six games today, the fire was already in their Arsenal, they like to set things on fire and somehow all that turned into the decision to set fire to the house and everyone who was there, but in what can be One of the most incriminating evidence to date Authorities recently discovered recordings of phone calls Robert made from jail after his first arrest talking to his then-wife Sarah Robert apparently talks about hiding unregistered firearms, including one of his own. caliber that was used to kill Vicki.

Sarah, who has since divorced Robert, but was advised by her lawyers not to speak at this time, new prosecutor Mike Hestrin, however, was ready to say a lot. What I thought was going to be a few months of review turned into almost a year and a half. An exclusive photo published by our subsidiary kesq shows the exact moment just a few months ago when Robert Pape was arrested again. Christian Smith would soon follow, as well as an official apology to the families for the apparent mishandling of the case. I apologized for the He added the anguish and pain that must have caused them when he found out they were arrested again.

What was that? I was very cautious because of experience, but I feel like this time we have the right evidence and prosecutors are hoping for one of those new pieces of evidence that may very well amount to The Smoking Gun that makes these charges stick at this time. The DA's office has an informant who basically has Christian basically confessing that yes, this informant claims to have had a conversation years ago with Christian Smith, shortly after the problematic homicides in which Christian Smith bragged about how things were going. They got so out of control at the murder scene that they had to burn the place to the ground through no fault of their own, and both their lawyers and family members vehemently deny the charges if they are found guilty.

Pape would face the death penalty and Christian, who after the murders, actually became a decorated war hero who received two Purple Hearts. He faces life. What do you think of Robert and Christian? I would like to wait until they are convicted before making such a harsh statement that I don't want to. Make such a horrible statement until the trial is over, but whatever the end result is, the end result will be the same, it's a horrendous crime, so how does your family deal with that kind of tragedy? You don't make it. It was very difficult to lose Becky.

It was such a big loss because she was like the heart of our family, she was so young and she was so full of life that she didn't even have a chance to live.