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Where Murder Lies: Death and Deception in West Hollywood

The murder of a retired Los Angeles school teacher in 2004 never made the evening news, yet within hours arrests were made, charges filed, and a speedy conviction sent to prison Jimmy Kitlas, an incredibly shy, special needs teenager with no criminal history whatsoever.

20 years after the murder, a woman named Kelley Leigh asked Burl Barer and Frank C. Girardot to investigate. She believed that the case’s rapid resolution concealed a deeper, more troubling narrative—one marked by deception, manipulation, dishonesty, and a profound disregard for truth and justice.

She was right. Of the last three people to see the victim alive, only one had both the motive and the opportunity to strangle him to death, and it wasn’t Jimmy Kitlas.