Hey, guys. Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

On this week's episode, I get together with the legendary, Carol Burnet, to talk about her life in comedy and her scene-stealing role in the new Apple TV+ series, Palm Royale.

You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Though, of course, it's It was good to be both. That was never truer, perhaps, than in the case of that missing young woman, Christie Johnson. If she doesn't tell the roommate that she's going off to meet somebody and this is what she's wearing, this case never goes anywhere. If another woman who had been recently propositioned by a photographer hadn't called a tip line and provided police with a description of a possible suspect, detectives wouldn't have had a sketch to show the public. This man approached me, and he looked normal. If a parole officer hadn't noticed the sketch looked a lot like one of her parolees, the detectives wouldn't have known who to investigate. He had only been released from prison on January 20, 2003. So yes, one month later and a week after Christie vanished, the detectives got lucky. They had a suspect, but they still hadn't found Christie, and luck rarely holds for long.

It was extremely frustrating, especially since some time had elapsed. We weren't sure if she was alive. We were hoping that she was alive.

In this episode, you'll hear about Disturbing Similarities: The Mall, The Man, Bond Film Auditions, and More Women.

I was watching the news one morning, having a cup of coffee, and the story was on, and there was this drawing of someone, a composite, and I recognized him immediately.

You'll hear how a laptop computer discovered during a routine search, turned up some chilling evidence.

There were shots of women with the long sleeve white shirt, a tie, a short black mini-skirt, nylons, and stiletto black heels.

And you'll hear about the gruesome discovery in an exclusive neighborhood of LA. Her hands had been bound. Her body stuffed in a sleeping bag.

Police say she's been there a while.

I'm Keith Morison, and this is murder in the Hollywood Hills, a podcast from Dateland, episode 3, The Girl with the Hibiscus Tattoo. Twelve days after Christie Johnson disappeared, they held a vigil in Santa Monica. As Roughly two dozen heavy-hearted souls gathered outside a big effiscable church that Thursday night. Feelings of hope and dread seemed to hang in the air like an unresolved cord. Twelve days, still no sign of Christie. And though there was also no proof that she was dead, Christie's mom seemed somehow reconciled.

We wanted to do something as a memorial to Christie's life at that church in Santa Monica.

That's Terry Hall, Christie's mom.

The Chief of Police and the Captain of the Santa Monica Police Department did come to visit me, and they said that they really felt that Christie was probably not alive.

Well, family, friends, and supporters were lighting candles and singing in Santa Monica. Detective Virginia Obenchain was 11 miles away in West Hollywood, searching an empty building. They laid a stop on a trail of leads. It was a trail that began with the sketch police released, based on the description Susan Murphy had given them, the man who'd met her at the mall and invited her to a Bond Girl audition. And then a parole officer called in to say the sketch resembled one of her parolees. She said his name was Victor Paleologus, He was 33 years old, white male, about 6'2. In law enforcement jargon, the guy was a 290, which meant he was a convicted sex offender. So then, detectives did a computer search and discovered he was already in jail.

Mr. Paley-logos happened to be in custody because Beverly Hills arrested him on unrelated charges to our case, but they arrested him for grand theft auto with a fraudulent application used to purchase a BMW. So he had been arrested on February 17th, and he was in county jail awaiting charges on that.

February 17th? That was just two days after Christie Johnson disappeared. It was possible. It seemed unlikely that this paleologus would be their suspect. But when Detective showed the mug shot to Susan Murphy, she said she was 100% sure that was the man who invited her to a bond audition. And here's the thing. According to the parole officer, Palaeologus had listed 980 La Cienica on parole forms as his address. 980 La Cienica was just steps away from where Susan Murphy and her boyfriend said they confronted the man. The detectives figured if Susan Murphy had been asked to come to that location, so near to where Paliologus was supposed to be living, well, maybe Christie had been taken there, too.

It was a two-story, multi-use complex. There was a restaurant downstairs, which once was owned by Palaeologus, and his apartment was on the second floor, and it was an old dance studio.

What did you find there?

Oh, he had different pamphlets and mail and stationery from the Century City Hotel. And then downstairs in a basement, we found his items, and a among them was his laptop computer.

Okay. What was on that?

There were shots of women with the long sleeve white shirt, a tie, a short black mini-skirt, nylons, and stiletto black heels.

Were they porno shots or more glamor shots?

I would say they were soft porn shots.

Okay. But the very same costume that he had Susan Murphy wear, the very same costume that your missing girl, apparently, was asked to wear.

Yes.

As Obenchain conducted her own search, the forensics people picked away at every possible surface, looking for some evidence that would show Christie had been there. Even dogs were brought in. Maybe they could detect Christie's scent. But no, there was nothing. Nothing there that tied Christie Johnson to Victor Paleologus.

You have to realize it was 20 years ago, over 20 years ago. Dna was not what it is today. And plus, if a person wears gloves, you don't normally get the fingerprints.

And so the very next day, Detective Obenchain decided it was time her investigators had a chat with Victor Paleologus, who, at that moment, was cooling his heels at the Men's Central Jail.

So we sent officers or my fellow detectives out there to go pick him up and bring him back to the station so we could interview him.

But there was a problem. Somebody at the jail had evidently tipped off Pelaologus that the Santa Monica police were on their way to talk to him. Because once the detectives from Santa Monica arrived at the jail, Victor Paleologus could not be found.

He was down in the laundry area, and he asked a couple of the inmates to switch wristbands with him and said he would give them $5,000 each. It was a matter of life or death. Well, we all know that there is no death penalty for auto theft.

No, indeed. But clearly, there was something he wanted to avoid revealing, himself, especially. Correct. Clearly, an act of desperation. One of the detaunees from whom Peleologus tried to buy a wristband was a 5'5 Hispanic male. Not someone that anyone would ever confuse with 6'2 Peleologus. But desperate men sometimes do desperate things. What I'm showing is a photograph of Mr. Peleologus, and he wrote under the picture, Este es el sospechoso que me preguntó, meaning that this is the person that asked me. What did you think when you heard about that?

That was probably about as good an admission of guilt as I could get.

Well, true, except that alone didn't prove anything. Did not prove Pelaeologus had ever met Christie. Did not prove he made her disappear. So when Victor Pelaeologus finally took a seating the Santa Monica Police Interview room that night, Detective Obenchain was hoping for another stroke of luck. Maybe he would confess or implicate himself in some way. But she was pretty sure he would not want to admit anything to a woman. So Detective Obenchain asked two male detectives to do the honors, and she would watch the video feed from another room.

I sat back as my partners interviewed him. I did not want to give Victor another opportunity to try to manipulate a female, and I wanted him to feel comfortable talking to a male. But I wanted my partners to be able to control the situation of the interview or the interrogation rather than Victor trying to control it by me being in the room.

Do you really think he would try to do that with you? I think he would. Virginia Obenchain was in her late 40s when I first met her, but she still had the blonde hair, the blue eyes, and sunny disposition of the prototypical California girl. A career in law enforcement had always been her dream job, though the nuns in parochial school told her it was off limits for little girls.

I remember distinctly going to Catholic school And after summer, he came back to school and the nun asked, Johnny, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he says, I want to be a fireman. And then the girls were, I want to be a nurse. I want to be a teacher. And then they asked me and I said, I want to be a policeman. And she said, You can't be a policeman. I said, Yes, I can.

Good for you. And then you did.

And I did.

But it wasn't as simple as that, really. Now, when it came time to choose a major in college, Virginia toyed with the idea of pre-med before settling on business administration.

I was going to go into labor law, and at 26 years old, I said, It's now or never. So I quit my job and joined the police force.

Well, so it had been on your mind all that time?

Yes.

In her 19 years on the police force, first in patrol, then narcotics, and then auto theft, Virginia Obenchain had learned a lot about human beings things. Some people were just not on the up and up and simply couldn't be trusted ever to do the right thing. And as she sat watching the video feed of the interview with Victor Peleologus, that conclusion never seen more true.

I could tell that he was lying. He had that attitude of, I have no idea why you're talking to me. Where's Christie? We need to find her if we can help her. I can't help you.

You knew he knew something. He's not telling you. That must be awfully frustrating.

It was extremely frustrating, especially since some time had elapsed. We knew that it was critical that we find her as soon as possible on the chance that she was still alive. So that we can get aid to her.

In one particularly telling exchange, interrogators asked Peleologus why he tried to steal a BMW two days after Christie Johnson vanished.

Well, he had told my partners that we're interviewing him that he wanted to go to Mexico.

As she watched, Peleologus slouched in the small interview room, nonchalantly batting away her colleagues' questions, Detective Obenchey knew she was looking at a criminal. The question was, was he a killer? For true crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen such a thing before? For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling than listening.

What goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that?

And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium, it gets even better. Excuse me, I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad-free. Oh, wow.

So This could be your ace in the hole.

And not just ad-free, you also get early access to new intriguing mysteries and exclusive bonus content. So what were you afraid of? Dateline Premium. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. You ready for what's coming? The Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles It's a sprawling concrete complex that has all the architectural charm of a stack of Amazon boxes left on the front steps. It's the largest jail in the nation's largest jail system. One of the oldest. Inside, thousands of men crowd into spaces meant for half as many. No one would want to go there if they didn't have to. But on the morning of March 3, 2003, a Monday, that where Detective Virginia Obenchain had to be. Meeting her there that day was Susan Murphy, her boyfriend, Mark, and the parking attendant who'd seen a man park Christie's sports car at the St. Regis Hotel the morning after she disappeared. This was going to be uncomfortable. The three witnesses would be looking at a live lineup. Sure, Susan had IDed a mug shot, but picking the right suspect out of a group of six men all standing right in in front of her and looking, by intent, vaguely similar?

This would be certainly a more definitive test. But even before the six men were let in, Detective Obenchain sensed trouble. Generally, arranging a live lineup is relatively straightforward proposition. But then, nothing seemed to be straightforward where Victor Pailiologus was concerned.

I anticipated there would be a problem with this because he was his hair and he was growing a beard, and that's not how he appeared when he approached the girls. So I got a warrant, a search warrant, basically forcing him to shave his beard and cut his hair.

I bet he didn't feel too good about that, did he?

No, he was not a real happy camper.

And so they take you into a room where there's a big window. That is Susan Murphy. That was terrifying. I really was. Does it look like they can see It does. And they explain that the way the lights shoot up and the way the light shoot down, that it makes it impossible for them to see you. It was a big room, theater seating. The men in the lineup stood on a platform up front, and Paley Logos was third from the left. Like all the others, he was wearing a yellow jail-issued sweatshirt with a big numeral three on his chest. His hair seemed to be must up, pulled down over his forehead, different from the composite and mugshot photos that had been used in previous photo arrays. You can get up and walk right in front of it to see. I didn't need to do that. I knew who it was immediately. And he was disguising him, acting all weird, trying to cut.

And I just instantly, What is he doing?

And I was like, That's the guy for sure. He's making weird faces and flat on his hair.

He tried to look so different.

I remember that thinking, God, what a...

Like, what a jerk.

Susan's boyfriend, Mark, also identified paleologus as the man he had confronted in West Hollywood. But the parking lot attendant? Well, that was a different story.

He picked a completely different person. He didn't pick Victor up.

Does that end up sending you in the wrong direction or holding you up? No.

No? No, we had enough IDs from the other victims or potential victims.

Other victims? Yes. By then, several other women had called the police tip line. Some were responding to media reports of a man claiming to be a photographer who had approached women at the Century City Mall. Some thought the composite sketch looked familiar. And a few had even picked Paleologus's picture out of a photo lineup. But as Detective Obenchain stood there in the lineup room saying her goodbyes to the witnesses, she knew she had a problem. Without finding Christie, either dead or alive. She was in the unenviable position of having a suspect, but no crime to charge him with. It was about three o'clock that afternoon when she and another detective walked out of the thick-walled jail. They were standing on the sidewalk when both their cell phones suddenly lit up. For more than an hour, officers had been trying to reach them, but there was no phone reception inside the jail. Thing was, said the collard, there was action in the Hollywood Hills. A little afternoon that day, hikers had spotted what they thought was a body 75 feet down a steep slope off of Skyline Drive.

Three hikers were up in the Lookout Mountain area, and one of them walked a little further down the hill, confirmed it was a body, and then found a neighbor and asked the neighbor to call the police.

Back in the city room of the LA Times, reporter Andrew Blankstein was watching the breaking news on TV. I remember very distinctly that the helicopter shot from above where the body was discovered. Andrew Blankstein is now an investigative reporter for NBC News. Then I remember having the conversation, getting a call, making calls with sources, first talking about that this is the body of Christie Johnson and then the suspect. Yes, by then, the media knew all about Victor Paliologus, though. His name had not been reported yet. While Blankstein worked his sources within the LAPD, Santa Monica Detective Obenchain was trying to figure out how she would get down the side of that steep hill to where the body was.

I wanted to get a closer look, but it was rather treacherous going down the side of the mountain. So they arranged to have the fire department send out a ladder truck, and they basically dangled me off the end of the ladder as they extended it.

What do you do when you're out on the end of a ladder? I mean, that'd be terrifying.

You hold it together because I am terrified of heights. But at the bottom of the ravine and off to the side in a neighbor's yard were about 30 news vans. And I said, Oh, dear God, I can't show my fear.

It was dark by then and turning colder as the detective was slowly lowered down the slope to the place where a woman's body lay crumpled and partially wrapped up in a blue sleeping bag. Her hands were bound behind her back with a shoestring. Had to be her, but problems. That month had been one of the wettest LA februaries on record. The hillside was a slick, muddy slide, saturated by rain that would almost certainly have washed away any forensic evidence that might have been found on the body. And besides...

She was decomposed from the shoulders up, so it was very hard to identify her. But the body did have the same type of tattoo that Christie had on the small of her back.

Oh, yes, the tattoo. That scrolling purplish hibiscus tattoo. Well, there was no doubt in the detective's mind as to who it was lying in the mud on that cold, soggy hillside. It would take a while for the medical examiner to gather dental records and make an official identification. So in the meantime, Christie Johnson was toe-tagged. Jane Doe, 28.

She was wearing a zip-up hoodie, underwear, nylons, and the stiletto shoes.Not the mini-skirt.Not the mini-skirt and not the shirt.

Two days later, the autopsy made it all too obvious. Christie's death had been violent. Hands tied, ankles bound together. A scuff on one of the stilettos suggested her body had been dragged at some point.

Her hyoid bone was crushed in, and she also had a radiating fracture of the skull.

Meaning what?

Well, they couldn't really pinpoint how she got the radiating fracture, but we're surmising that she was strangled and her body was dumped over the side of the hill, and she must have hit a rock or a log or something. Perimortem.

Perimortem. That means Christie Johnson was likely on the brink of death, but still alive when she was rolled down that hill. There was no trace of her attacker's DNA. Not a bit. Not under Christie's fingernails and not anywhere else, for that matter. The wet weather had done its worst. As to time of death, Now it seemed certain that Christie Johnson had died within hours of leaving her apartment to meet a man she hoped might make her a star. Friday night on Dateland, she was the prime suspect in a cold-blooded murder. We can't find her. She's gone. Now, the inside story of how they brought a killer to justice. Wow, this took an unexpected turn. Dateline Friday at 9:00 AM central, only on NBC. Terry Hall was on a flight to New York when her daughter's body was found on that muddy hillside, scheduled to appear on some network news shows to raise awareness for Christie's case. So it wasn't until after she landed that Santa Monica Police Chief James Butts was able to deliver the terrible news.

I will be a victim of Christie's murder for the rest of my life.

That's Christie's mom Terry.

And anybody who loved Christie or knew Christie is also a victim of this murder.

Christie's brother, Derek, was at work in an airplane hangar in North Carolina when he got the call from his dad. Dead. He just called me and just asked me where I was.

Was I okay?

Can you sit down, please? Because we have to talk. He just took a deep breath and said that they found her body, and that Christie's not with us anymore.

I think a lot of stuff in those next couple of days was really fuzzy.

The next morning, Police Chief Butts was on the Network Morning Shows to say the police had a suspect in the Christie Johnson murder case. I want to give my condolences on behalf of the city of Santa Monica to Christie's parents.

It's a very, very sad day for them. We are focused on a subject of interest that we feel has very strong links to both the incident that I talked about last time to the woman in January and to Christie Johnson.

Butts went on to say that though the suspect was already in custody on an unrelated matter, he had a history of assaulting women under similar circumstances. In one of the incidents that he was convicted for, he named the same specific movie production that he mentioned to the first witness and to Christie.

We purposely have not identified him because we don't name people that aren't arrested in charge.

Chief Butts may have wanted to avoid publicly naming Victor P Logus, but LA's newshounds were undeterred. Reporters have sources, and sources talk. It's an old detective that once told me that what police don't say is just as important as what they do say. Former LA Times reporter Andrew Blankstein. This was one of those cases where they didn't say a whole lot, and I knew, actually, that said a whole lot, that this was a bigger deal, not just because in some ways it fit this image of somebody who was young and naive and had big dreams and was killed, but this idea that there's just certain people that take advantage of that in ways large and small. That night, 16 days after Christie Johnson went missing, two local TV stations broadcast a photo of Paleologus. The next morning, the Los Angeles Times published his name, the cat was out of the bag. Now, a smart defense lawyer might be able to argue that future witnesses might be influenced by that unfairly. Oh, and there was a new witness the very next day. But influenced unfairly? It didn't seem like it.

I was watching the news one morning, having a cup of coffee, and Christie Johnson being missing had been in the news for a while, a few weeks.

Her name was Kathy De Bono.

The story was on, and the photo that they showed of him was an immediate recognition of who he was.

So Kathy called the tip line that very morning.

I just told them my story.

Were you called down to look at a six-pack, as they call it, at a bunch of photographs? Yeah. Yes. And when you saw that group of photographs, was it really obvious?

Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. No question.

Kathy's story went back to the late '90s. She was a 28-year-old actress at the time. She'd had bit parts on a number of TV shows, recurring roles on Chicago Hope, and the old Star Trek sequel, Deep Space Nine. Cathy was on the lookout for a new opportunity, and that, she said, is when she met the man police suspected of killing Christie Johnson. Where? Why? At the Century City Mall, just where Christie met him.

It was the later part of '98, early part of 1999.

What happened?

I was there shopping by myself one afternoon, and I was approached by a man who asked me if I was an actor or a model. And I said, Yeah, I'm an actor. And then I just stopped and waited to hear what he had to say. Which was? He told me he really liked my legs. I was wearing shorts, and that he was working closely with the James Bond movies, and that he were looking for new people, people who weren't so recognizable to be in promotions for the James Bond movies, James Bond Girls, posters, advertisements, promotions, things like that.

It could be a billboard even, possibly.

Yes, he talked about billboards. Sure.

That sounded a bit scammy, but at least plausible to Kathy. After all, she could look the part. 6 feet tall, with long dark hair and the athletic build of the college volleyball player she once was, Cathy could see herself in the role of a bond girl.

He actually asked if I would sit and talk to him for a minute, which I did. And he wanted me to leave the mall with him that day and go take pictures at a colleague's house. We had a studio in his house who could take pictures right then and there and get me submitted or get me started. He talked about big bucks. He named numbers of money that I can't recall today, but it was a lot of money. I suggested that he call my agent and set up an appointment through her.

What do you say to that?

He didn't want to do that. He wasn't interested in talking to my agent. He started to make the argument that it was more money for me if I didn't go through my agent, she wouldn't have to take her cut. It would slow down the process, which, of course, was just a red flag for me. Anyone who asks you to leave a mall right then and there with them is a red flag.

Yes, the warning lights in the back of Kathy's brain were blinking. But the man talked a good game, and he didn't look like somebody who'd be dangerous. Was it like he was coming on to you?

No, he wasn't lascivious at all. He didn't try to touch me. He didn't try to flirt with me or come on to me. He was very business-like, very professional.

Describe what he looked like.

He was about, I would say 6'2. He was a little bit taller than me. I'm 6 feet tall. He was wearing a suit, a nice gray suit. He seemed like he could be legitimately in the business and talking to me about a real opportunity.

So she was curious, what was this guy up to? And he went on smooth as silk as he rolled out his pitch. Then she asked him for a business card.

He presented me with a business card that looked a little tattered, a little old, and he told me I could look at it, but he would really like to have it back because it was the last card that he had. At this point, of course, I realized there was no real opportunity here. This was just some guy trying to rope me into something distasteful.

The warning signals in Kathy's brain were blaring now. Still, she said she was intrigued by the man's audacity. As the daughter of a New York City detective, she figured she'd maybe play along, go to this photoshoot, see what happened.

I took down all the information on that card, and I did call my agent and give it to her and had her follow up and call that number.

Did it seem legitimate based on that?

Well, the person whose card that was called my agent back after she had left him a message and said, Tell her not to go to this meeting. That is not me. I don't know who has my card, but tell your client not to go.

Did you get that message before you were to have a meeting with him?

Yes.

That night, Kathy called her father in New York and told him what was going on. She asked if he thought the local police would go along with her, maybe as part of a sting operation. But her dad said no, no crime had been committed yet. Detective de Bono knew his daughter well enough to know she would probably go through with the meeting anyway. So he cautioned her, Do not go alone.

I just felt like I wanted to catch him doing I don't know what, but I wanted to corner him. I wanted to catch him.

Is that a little dangerous?

Yeah, probably. Yes, it is, and I wouldn't recommend it. But I went and got a friend of mine who was a stuntman on the show that I was working on, a big, strong, tough guy. And I asked him to just come with me.

The next day, Kathy De Bono and her stuntman sidekick drove to an address in the Hollywood Hills where she'd been told the photoshoot would take place. So you took your friend with you?

Yes.

Groved up there. What happened?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Nothing. I was instructed by him to wait in my car in an area of the block where he told me to park. He said, Bring your car here, park here. Someone will come out and get you, show you where to put your car, show you where to park your car, and then lead you to the house.

And there you sat with the man in the car?

Yeah.

And nobody came?

Nobody came.

Do you think he was watching the car?

My assumption is he was looking from somewhere and saw my friend in the car and just aborted his mission.

A close call, to be sure. One that some other actress might have shrugged off as one of those things that can happen in Hollywood, just part of the scene. But not Cathy de Bono. The experience stuck with her. And as you will see in future episodes would lead her to study the mysterious Mr. Paleologus, learn who he was, where he had been, and then meet him again under circumstances very different from those of the Century City Mall. Next time on murder in the Hollywood Hills. He grabbed me, pulled me by my hair, dragged me back to the bed, and I knew that This was it. He grabbed my neck with his arm and started to choke me. As reporters, we talk about falling through the cracks. He was somebody that seemed to just skirt the lock. I'm not asking for anybody to take pity on me in this situation, okay? But at least let the facts come out before you make judgments, okay? Is that why you're doing this interview? Let the facts come out? I've had a lot of issues that have happened in my past I'm not proud of, but I'm not going to sit back, okay, and let myself be steam rolled over on something that I haven't done.

Murder in the Hollywood Hills is a production of Dateland and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer. Brian Drew, Kelly Laudine, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins and Keanu Reade are associate producers. Adam Gourfane is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory and Catherine Kieran Anderson. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production. Hey, guys. Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the legendary, Carol Burnet, to talk about her life in comedy and her scene-stealing role in the new Apple TV+ series, Palm Royale. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.