Re-opening the book on Ballreich

The Los Angles County Sheriff’s Department will take a fresh look at the unsolved 1991 murder of former Alhambra mayor Stephen Ballreich after new information about the execution-style killing emerged recently in a Pasadena Weekly story.

County Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s office asked the department to re-examine the case after the Feb. 23 Weekly story brought forth previously undisclosed aspects of Ballreich’s life and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Under the review, a detective will scour the case file for overlooked clues and potential leads and report the findings up the chain-of-command for possible action.

Prior to the publication of the story, there had been little public discussion of late about the murder, and no acknowledgement that the investigation had hit a standstill. Detectives concede they still have no suspects and no clear motive why someone mowed down the 41-year-old ex-politician just after dusk on Nov. 14, 1991.

Antonovich’s Justice Deputy Anna Pemedjian said that while the Sheriff’s Department has already re-examined the case twice since the initial investigation, there was sufficient reason to do it again following publication of the article.

“We don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” Pemedjian said.

Ballreich leapt into the national spotlight in the late-1970s when he became Alhambra’s mayor at the age of 26. He seemed to have everything going for him. He was strapping and handsome, charismatic and driven — a stark contrast to his grayer City Council colleagues. Republican pundits foresaw a limitless career ahead for him.

Those ambitions fizzled shortly after his landslide 1979 re-election when the District Attorney’s Office investigated activists’ claims that Ballreich had misspent about $2,700 in city travel expenses. Though prosecutors filed no charges, Ballreich abruptly resigned from the council, relocating, somewhat strangely, to Arkansas for most of the 1980s.

Ballreich had only been back in Southern California for three years when he was felled by two close-range shotgun blasts as he walked or jogged around Alhambra’s Marguerita Avenue, where his childhood home is located. He’d been a political consultant with hopes of seeking office again and the father to a young daughter when he was shot.

Afterwards, wild speculation flew that a hit man hired by a jealous woman, spouse or father was behind it, or that the murder may have been tied to Ballreich’s gambling problems, or even his political activities.

Ballreich told many people that he’d associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton during his time in the South. He also talked about how he would fundraise for Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign despite their partisan differences; Clinton advisers claim they’ve never heard of him.

As the murder theories grew, authorities tried tempering them, hinting it might’ve been gang-related.

Nobody knows much more because neither the Alhambra Police Department, which first responded to the shooting, nor the Sheriff’s Department that took over the inquiry will release the crime report.

The Weekly story drew on the autopsy report, interviews and a memo sent to detectives by one of Ballreich’s longtime friends outlining possible suspects. The paper found that at the time of his death, Ballreich was entangled with two unstable women, had allegedly received a 1989 death threat from the husband of one of them, and had a will drafted in the summer preceding his death.

Two of his friends believe police did not pursue one girlfriend of his as aggressively as they might have after she told them she’d have her lawyer represent her if they kept asking her questions. These same friends also said that potentially incriminating evidence, including Ballreich’s address book, went missing from his apartment immediately after the crime.

“I’m concerned [the Sheriff’s Department] didn’t follow through,” said Steven Born, a Ballreich pal from their days together in the Young Republicans. “I’d like to see what’s in the crime report.”

Sheriff’s officials contend they ran a thorough inquiry that exhausted all avenues. They will not comment on specific information contained in the Weekly story.

“Obviously, our business is to solve these things, and if there is anything that leads us there we want to take advantage of it,” said Homicide Bureau Capt. Ray Peavy. “I asked a detective to pull the file, to go through [the] story very carefully and take another look at the case. … I want to be able to say that there is absolutely no new direction to go into. You do have people talking and that’s good.”

Be that as it may, there hasn’t been much talk about Ballreich’s murder at Alhambra City Hall, where his official picture still hangs on the wall next to other former mayors. Some have wondered whether moral disgust with Ballreich’s appetite for young girls, betting and fast living affected the way he was remembered — or the investigation.

Councilman Paul Talbot said he has never called the Sheriff’s Department for updates because it’s a law enforcement matter. In the same vein, he said the council hasn’t asked for a briefing about the ongoing murder case against rock producer Phil Spector, who is charged with killing an actress at his Alhambra mansion in 2003, so why should they for Ballreich?

“I don’t mean that to sound cavalier, but there are probably thousands of unsolved murders in LA County over 15 years,” Talbot said. “Stephen Ballreich’s murder, though more sensational, is just as tragic as thousand of others. I’m more interested in the more current types of crimes.”

The Sheriff’s Department has about 1,200 cold cases it’s working, including Ballreich’s, Peavy said.

Councilman Daniel Arguello, who split with Talbot in a bitter power struggle in the last few years, disagrees that Alhambra should be passive about coaxing the Sheriff’s Department for information or resolution to the crime.

“This isn’t Los Angeles, where you have 4 million people living there – it’s Alhambra!” said Arguello, who is currently running for Assembly. “It was a very serious crime and nobody knows who did it, even the Alhambra spin doctors who say Ballreich was an evil guy. This was about somebody who was murdered. You can never tell what tip disclosing the police report might bring in.”

Detectives have refused to do that, citing policy and concerns that releasing the report might jeopardize what clues they have. The autopsy report said Ballreich was killed with two devastating shotgun pellet salvos. One hit him in the left side of the face and exited through the back of his head. The other struck him in the back and exploded through his chest.

For many, the way he was killed and the apparent lack of evidence suggested it was a professional job engineered by a vengeful person.

Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, a public interest and First Amendment group, said it’s not unusual for police agencies to snub requests for crime reports. State law, he said, gives them leeway to do so, and it’s the investigative culture to keep information close to the vest.

It’s a double-edged sword, he added, because detectives certainly don’t want to do anything to let a perpetrator better cover their tracks, just like they don’t want to be accused of covering up sloppy police work or other problems.

“It’s anybody’s guess why they are not releasing the report” in this case, Francke said.