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 There wasn't a national fingerprint database in 1973 when the murder was committed. |
Detective clears a case
that was cold for 34 years
of TheColumnists.com
If I were a retired
NFL quarterback, I’d be praising the hell out of Peyton
Manning’s performance in the recent Super Bowl. He won the
big one! But I’m just a retired Chicago police sergeant,
so I enjoy giving my praise to good police work.
A Los Angeles police detective recently solved a crime that had
taken place just a 10-minute drive from my home here in Southern
California. Here’s the kicker: The crime occurred some 34
years ago!
A man named George Akopian was murdered by someone he'd just admitted through the front door of his home. George was a 54-year-old semi-retired construction worker who enjoyed collecting stamps as a sideline business. He had placed an ad in the local paper to sell some of his collection. A prospective buyer was due at his home in Tarzana the evening of March 18, 1973.
George’s wife was in another room when she heard her husband and the stranger argue. Then she heard a gunshot. She ran into the front room and found her husband lying dead on the floor. He had been shot in the chest. The murderer had fled, but he left behind a small suitcase, which indicated he was the stamp collector George had been expecting. Inside the case was a copy of George’s newspaper ad seeking buyers for his stamps. Mrs. Akopian gave the cops the murderer's description: A Caucasian male, 25-30 years of age, dark brown or black hair, 5 feet 9 inches tall.
The case originally was worked by the LAPD but to no avail. The single fingerprint police were able to lift off of the ad found in the murderer's suitcase was checked locally, but no match was found. The police appealed to the public via the media, which gave them some leads that failed to pan out. Some time afterward, like a lot of other murder cases, this one was shelved in the cold case bin. There are more than 9,000 murder cases in the cold case file of the LAPD.
Jump ahead now some 34 years after George’s murder, Enter Det. Rick Jackson who was re-working cold case files. Detective Jackson found the dusty George Akopian murder file on the shelf. He submitted the single fingerprint it contained to the national database for prints and--bingo!–a match was made, identifying the print as that of Francis J. Fico, a career criminal who had spent most of his life in and out of prison. Jackson subsequently learned Fico had died in a car crash a decade earlier.
You may wonder why it took the police 34 years to make this match? Best reason: There was no national fingerprint database in 1973. A man fingerprinted in Los Angeles would see his prints stay right there. Today his prints would be electronically sent to the national database, which acts like a clearing-house for anyone printed just about any place. Another good reason this case was solved now and not back then is that there are many more detectives assigned to work cold cases than in the old days. And detectives working old case files today use much better technology, not only for screening prints, but for tracing DNA samples, property serial numbers and identifications and more.
Though solving this crime 34 years late may not give the Akopian family any great cause to celebrate, it's still a terrific piece of police work. Even if it came slower than all of us would have liked. I feel that Detective Jackson’s admirable effort has now spoken on behalf of the victim George Akopian, telling the world it was Francis J. Fico who shot and killed him.
I’ve always felt one of the most important things a good detective can do for crime victims to become their “voice from the grave.” The one principle that always guided my efforts as a detective is that nobody should get away with murder. I'm sure Detective Jackson was motivated by the same principle.
In the case at hand, Jackson couldn’t supply evidence that would convict a man already dead. But he did establish that Francis J. Fica was without a doubt a murderer. Fica's record shows that he was arrested for robbery at 20. At 30 he robbed a bank in New York. He also was convicted of carrying firearms, and his life was one of crime. The final punishment Fica faced was ordered by the Almighty himself.
If Fica suffered a painful death in that car crash 10 years ago in Spokane, Washington, I can’t help but feel justice was served on behalf of George Akopian, his family and all the rest of us. Thank you Det. Rick Jackson for a job well done!
©2007 by Andy Murcia. The illustration
is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd.
E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Feb.
26, 2007.
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