ONE OF THEIR OWN

police for his possible involvement in the murder of Carol DeFelice, a prostitute. He was never charged in that case.

Then, in June 1985 a 16-yearold girl whose car had broken down on University Avenue in La Mesa was offered help by a man in ablue van. After she got in he tried to subdue her with a stun gun and ordered her to sit between the seats. She screamed, fought him off, and escaped, memorizing the van’s license plate number as she fled.

The plate was registered to Tatro. Police found him at his sister’s house, in the back of the van He was naked on the floor bleeding from both wrists. Two razor blades were nearby, as was apornographic magazine depicting bondage and sadomasochism He’d written a note leaving all his possessions to his sister

He was taken to a hospital, and then to court, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison “I want psychiatric help,” Tatro told a probation officer, “and I want to live a normal life.”

When he got out of prison, he was sent back to Arkansas for violating his parole there and eventually wound up in Tennessee. On Aug. 24, 2011 27 years to the day after Hough’s body was found Tatro drowned in what authorities ruled a boating accident on a river.

Was the date a coincidence or amessage? Tatro’s hat, glasses and wallet were still on the boat, tucked away safely Officials said it appeared he went into the water on purpose

If it was a suicide, it was the second one involving someone associated with the Hough case. And not the last.

In every one of Tatro’s crimes, he acted alone, a possible red flag for detectives trying to connect him to Kevin Brown, the criminalist Or not.

Lambert’s experience working all sorts of cases, from lowlevel misdemeanors to murder, taught him that “there are many times where people acted alone when they were out there, and then there are instances where those same people who act alone in crimes will also act in concert or with other people in other crimes.

So detectives kept looking for links, and began making plans to search one place where they thought they might find them: Brown’s house.

Although the criminalist had left the San Diego Police Department a decade before his DNA showed up in the Hough case, he was still in the area. He shared a two-story, three-bedroom home in Chula Vista with his wife Rebecca, her mother and one of her brothers

After quitting his SDPD job his bosses had made it clear his difficulty on the witness stand jeopardized his continued employment he returned to New Mexico and the state crime lab for a few years Then he and his wife came back to San Diego, where he worked in an electronics store until he was 55, old enough to begin drawing his police pension.

Lambert expected at some point to try to interview Brown, but he worked around the edges first, talking to criminalists who knew him from the lab.

He learned things that roused his suspicions

Brown had a nickname among co-workers: “Kinky Kevin.” It stemmed from a fondness for strip clubs and nude photography activities he pursued during his first decade here, while he was abachelor

Several of his former colleagues told Lambert that Brown didn’t just go to strip clubs he bragged about the visits. They said Brown also regaled them with tales of organized photo shoots involving naked models, including one in a hotel that was raided by the vice squad. He once asked a female employee to pose for him.

Annette Peer a retired criminalist who found Brown “creepy,” said she was alone with him in the lab one day when he started reading out loud from a police report. Criminalists did this from time to time, laughing at sections they found odd or amusing

There was nothing funny about the report Brown had, Peer told the detective. It detailed a sexual assault “very violent.” Peer couldn’t understand why Brown had the report in his desk, let alone why he chose to share it with her Peer said Brown also brought apornographic movie to work one day and showed it to several male colleagues.

Strippers nude models, porn —Lambert wondered if those were the shadowy worlds where

COURTESY PHOTO

Ronald Tatro was linked by DNA to the Hough case, too, and cold-case detectives tried in vain to find evidence connecting him to Brown. This photo was taken in 1984 the same year Hough was slain.

TOP, clockwise from upper right: Claire Hough and a portion of her autopsy report.

Ronald Tatro, a portion of a case toxicology report and a photo of Tatro’s van. A portion of a San Diego Police department press release about the case and depictions of a DNA strand and spermatozoa.

Kevin Brown, drawings from an investigator’s evidence notes regarding blood on Hough’s pants and a photo of her blouse.

A San Diego Police Department photo of the bridge above where Hough’s body was found and a portion of the case’s original evidence list.

Brown and Tatro met. Birds of a feather?

By the end of 2013 the detectives were ready to approach Brown directly

Aconfession is often the most powerful evidence prosecutors present in a criminal trial, so detectives work hard to obtain them Lambert told Peer that he might have to “sweat Brown to close the case. (“God, I wish I could be a fly on the wall,” she replied.)

Lambert also sought permission to search Brown’s house. In early January 2014, he filed a 34-page affidavit outlining the history of the case, the DNA results and the “Kinky Kevin stories It said the crime lab had determined that contamination “is not possible” as an explanation for Brown’s sperm showing up in the evidence.

Superior Court Judge Frederic Link signed the warrant. It authorized police to take cellphones, computers newspaper clippings, photographs and other items that might have information relating to Hough, Tatro or the murder investigation.

Ateam was assembled About adozen police officers waited outside while Lambert and Adams walked to the front door. They had not informed Brown they were coming. He didn’t know he was under investigation. Brown answered the knock on the door It was about 8:30 a.m and he was still in his pajamas and robe. “Good morning,” he said, and allowed them in.

Lambert said they wanted Brown’s help with some old homicide cases involving prostitutes. He showed Brown a photo of one of the victims, killed in February 1984. Brown didn’t recognize her

There’s a man we believe might be involved in the murder the detective said. Maybe you know him.

The man was Tatro. The detectives said he had been contacted by police in September 1984. That would have been one month after Hough was murdered. He was parked in a Dodge van on El Cajon Boulevard, in an area frequented by prostitutes, they said.

An officer filled out a field interview card, and on the back scrawled a note: Tatro said he knows a SDPD employee named Kevin Brown. None of that was true. There was no police stop, no field interview card, no claim by Tatro that he knew Brown. This is known as a ruse, and it’s been deemed legal by the courts. Police can lie to a suspect while pursuing a confession, as long as they don’t cross the line into illegal coercion. But just where to draw that line is controversial, and several states Oregon, Illinois, New York have passed or proposed laws to curtail falsehoods.

The detectives showed Brown aphoto of Tatro and another one of his van. “Maybe you were buddies at the time or something like that,” Lambert said, suggesting the two might have met at a strip club or a bar

“It doesn’t ring a bell,” Brown said.

“You must have had some kind of interaction with him,” Adams said.

Brown: “I don’t know how he got to know me.”

“For him to to drop your name,” Lambert said, “obviously he knew you existed and obviously he knew that it was a police employee, because how else would he know that if you had never met?”

Brown kept looking at the photo, wracking his brain. He mentioned the nude photography wondered if maybe Tatro had been taking pictures, too. They talked about that for several minutes, the detectives asking for details about whether the models were also strippers or prostitutes.

The detectives said Tatro was someone who targeted young females. They mentioned the La Mesa stun gun case and asked Brown if maybe that jogged his memory. It didn’t.

“We feel pretty confident this guy is probably good for some other cases,” Lambert said. “That’s our big reason for trying to find somebody that may have known him back then that would be able to give us some kind of insight as to the type of person he was.”

Brown went to his computer and looked up the name of a man who organized the nude photo shoots. He suggested detectives contact that guy to get a line on Tatro.

Then Lambert said they were looking at Tatro in connection with a particular case He showed Brown a photo of Claire Hough.

“Oh,” Brown said, “I remember her.”

This story was compiled from thousands of pages of police reports, court filings sworn depositions and trial transcripts. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes used are from those records. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com