Connections

A random phone call links the past and the present

The man who found my phone number in the summer of 2023 left a voice mail in a tone that seemed resigned to talking to machines, receptionists and other gatekeepers.

No one was paying attention to what he’d been saying for years. Why should they? Robert isn’t a celebrity and he’s obsessed with a family story that should have been forgotten years ago.

In my experience, people like Robert, with stories like his, usually get shuffled off the phone and forgotten.

“Hi. My name is Robert. I’m trying to get a hold of Frank. This is regarding the Mark Achilli murder that happened in Los Gatos. I don’t know if it’s new information, but I know its information that’s not been heard publicly about some of the things that went on. The other half of the story…”

I wanted to hear more. Fortunately, the other half or halves or pieces of Robert’s tale are many.

The voice message linked together characters and bits and pieces of a story that I had once written about as a knockoff book for distribution via Kindle. Co-writer Burl Barer convinced me we could sell some books based the an upcoming episode of a Discovery Channel True Crime show titled "Deadly Sins" Lethal Love Triangles , by writing about it. It involved an alleged March 14, 2008 murder-for hire that grew from a love triangle involving two men and a femme fatale — classic fare for true crime TV.

I wrote my part in a night. Hungover and nursing a massive red wine headache, I was between jobs, homes and cars and needed some additional income. I figured if I wrote faster, I’d get paid faster.

Since turning it in, I’ve not read it, edited it nor cashed a check for it. Nonetheless, others did read it. Robert included. Don’t rush to Amazon to buy it. Read the story here instead. It will be fuller and closer to the truth.

Robert’s voice message reminded me of some other connections I had to his story and to Paul. For starters, although I was born in Detroit, Michigan, I grew up in Saratoga, California, the town next to Los Gatos, where Mark Achilli was murdered. On its face, that’s not a huge deal, but Saratoga and Los Gatos are sort of twins nestled against the Santa Cruz Mountains on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley, aka Silicon Valley.

If you are from one you are familiar with the other and vice versa.

Of the two towns, Los Gatos was always the bad twin. It had a movie theater famous for its midnight show where dope smoking and underage drinking were de rigueur. Los Gatos had bars that were open past 2 a.m., fun late-night restaurants and even a brewery before such a place was popular or synonymous with small town U.S.A.

Saratoga on the other hand had two eateries and some antique stores. Both restaurants closed at 8:30 p.m. One served French cuisine, the other was famous for fondue.

There were other links, Los Gatos’ main drag emptied onto Highway 17 and over the hill into Santa Cruz — Surf City. The road, a winding incline that lacked adequate guardrails in the middle or along its steep cliff-like sides, claimed scores of teen lives through the years.

Saratoga served as the gateway to a hidden coastal redwood forest and the smaller towns of Boulder Creek and Felton — Santa Cruz County locales where folks went when they wanted to get away from the mainstream or avoid a warrant in Santa Clara County. Saratoga’s main drag, California Highway 9, aka Big Basin Way, was no less treacherous than Highway 17 just less traveled. it too led to Santa Cruz.

I can’t leave out Bellarmine College Preparatory, the Jesuit-run all-boys prep school, where I went to high school, graduating in 1979. Paul Garcia, the man convicted of hiring a friend to murder Achilli and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, went there too and graduated in 1996.

Finally, there’s strong tie to the San Gabriel Valley in suburban Los Angeles County. That’s the place where I cut my teeth as a crime writer and reporter.

There are too many intersections to ignore. We’re going to line up the connections like the popular game on the New York Times website.

We will talk a lot about Paul in this story. Paul and Robert, his cousin, both say Paul was unfairly castigated by a DA seeking election and wrongfully convicted by a jury that didn’t hear all the facts. In the interim, just about every effort by Paul to revisit the case has been rebuffed by judges in Santa Clara County and state and federal courts.

Regardless, it starts here, at the beginning of a court document that details the Los Gatos crime scene.

At approximately 11:40 a.m. on March 14, 2008, after he was told by a man that he had heard eight gunshots fired in rapid succession from a semi-automatic hand-gun, Los Gatos Police Officer Daniel Accardo approached the driveway of 18400 Overlook. As he did so a white van approached; the driver of the van said he had heard the gunshots. As the officer drove into the driveway an elderly gentleman flagged down the officer and told him that there was a badly injured man near a carport.

At 18400 Overlook, Officer Accardo saw a man lying face down in a carport; the man was bleeding from multiple places and there were spent shell casings on the ground. Emergency personnel arrived and declared Achilli dead. Officer Accardo was able to identify Achilli from the driver's license the officer found in Achilli's wallet, which firefighters had collected from a pocket in Achilli's pants.

Approximately two hours after the shooting, Los Gatos Police Department Corporal Kalipona Kauweloa and other officers collected evidence from the area surrounding the shooting scene. Specifically, in various different places they found a torn photograph of Achilli, a gun cleaning cloth, a black jacket recovered on Chestnut Avenue, two black gloves, a gun magazine, a black Los Angeles Dodger's baseball cap, a gun magazine with two unspent .380 cartridges, and a page of printed driving directions from Fish Canyon Road (in Duarte, Ca.) to 18400 Overlook (in Los Gatos).

The officers did not locate a gun.

Coming soon. Chapter Two.

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