Good Cop or Bad Cop? The Story of Billy Joe McIlvain and the Murder of David Dominguez

By David J. Winters

On February 28, 1977, former police officer Billy Joe McIlvain entered his West Covina home with local gang 18 year old gang member, David Dominguez.  McIlvain shouted out to his wife to grab the baby and run as Dominguez was there to kill them.  She picked up her child and went to a neighbor's house.  The police were called and when they arrived, a seige ensued that lasted many hours with over 100 shots fired.  Finally, Billy Joe came out after killing David Dominguez with a gun he had hidden away.  But soon, his story of being kidnaped and killing in self defense began to unravel as the evidence at the scene did not fit with the story he told.  Was he the victim or the perpetrator of the crime?  He was arrested, tried and convicted for kidnap and murder but always maintained his innocence.

 

This is the true story as told by fellow police officer who witnessed the events first hand.  It details the threats and many acts of harrassment that took place over several years building up to the killing and along the way, also introduces the reader to what it was like to be a police officer in Los Angeles County in the 1970s.  Good Cop or Bad Cop?  You decide!

 

Book length: Approximately 178 pages

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morkie Press LLC
• Release date: Apr 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987925201

David J. Winters

David was born in 1947 and raised in San Gabriel, CA.  After a three-year hitch in the Army beginning in 1967, he joined the San Gabriel Police Department in 1971 and quickly rose through the ranks to become a Lieutenant in 1977.  Over the years, he commanded Services Division, Juvenile and was a Patrol Division Watch Commander.  He retired in 2002 and moved with his wife, Teresa to the State of Washington in 2006.  He enjoyes taking care of his two acre property, taking road trips with his wife and spending time with his kids.

Book preview

The Beginning

About five miles north of the town of Soledad, California; on the east side of Highway 101, a large complex of buildings stands on a slight rise.  Surrounded by high fencing and razor wire, it is the State Correctional Institute for Men, commonly known as Soledad Prison.  It is part of a large complex of prisons situated throughout California and currently houses well over five thousand inmates.  According to the website, State Courts.org, Soledad is overcrowded with an inmate bed capacity of 3312 and an actual population that currently stands at 5,235 inmates. The prison houses inmates convicted for a variety of crimes from white collar offenses up to and including murder.  Back in the 1970s, the prison was not as physically large as it is now but according to historical reporting from Prisonpro.com, it still had an inmate population near five thousand inmates, including some well-known criminals like Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy and Dan White, the man who murdered Harvey Milk in San Francisco.

In the summer of 1982, my wife and I were driving up highway 101 on our way to San Francisco and Napa/Sonoma for a week’s vacation.  As we passed the prison, Tere commented on how big the complex was and wondered how many people were there.  I told her I wasn’t sure but guessed there were four to five thousand.  I added, You know, an old friend of mine lives there.  Tere asked if I was talking about Billy Joe McIlvain and I said that I was.  He had been sent to Soledad in 1977 for the crimes of Kidnap and Murder and was sentenced to serve life.

My wife than laughingly said, We have time, if you want to stop and visit.  I smiled and answered her, Honey, Bill wouldn’t even leave his cell if he knew I was his visitor.  I am pretty sure he hates me through and through.  Why? Tere asked. You didn’t testify about the murder; you were talking about another thing that happened in the city jail!  True, I said.  But that’s not what matters. It only matters that I gave evidence against Bill and not in support of him." 

Tere said, Oh, I see. You’re supposed to lie for him?  I thought for a minute and then said, Well, I think you have to understand what being a police officer meant to Bill. He always figured that no matter what he did, even if it was outside the boundaries, it was okay because he was a policeman and that made him better than those he dealt with.  He also felt it was the responsibility of all other policemen to cover his acts and have his back.  He pretty much saw the police family as a closed society that was obligated to take care of one another.  So, he probably felt that when I refused to lie for him, I was being disloyal, not just to him but to the so-called code of silence.  Tere asked, What if the shoe had been on the other foot, would he have covered for you?  I said, I am not sure. If it was to his advantage to speak up, he would rat another officer out so fast, it would make your head spin!  How is that living up to his code? Tere asked.  I joked, Well, I didn’t mention the first rule of the code, it has to be good for Bill or it does not count."  I went on to explain that Bill was a master manipulator, who went out of his way to convince others that he was always right and he was willing to manipulate others even if it meant dragging them down with him.  So, getting a fellow officer to lie for him, even if that could cost the officer his job; was no problem for Bill because the only thing that mattered to him was his own welfare. Another thing to know about Bill was that he was a narcissist.  It mattered more to him how things looked as opposed to how they really were.  In his world, he needed to be the hero that everybody looked up to.

As we drove past the prison, I said, Let’s see, he has been there for about five years now.  I wonder if he still thinks the same or if he has changed any? I remembered the prosecutor in his case once saying that guys like Billy Joe never change, it is just not part of their nature.  I said to Tere, Wonder if he’s still trying to manipulate people?

Here I was, ten years into a police career and already a Lieutenant and Watch Commander in Patrol Division and Bill McIlvain, well in the same amount of time, he took a promising career and destroyed it, ending up in prison where he was serving a life sentence for kidnap and murder. Not only did he destroy a career, he destroyed his own family, leaving behind a wife and new baby girl and that does not even begin to cover the damage to the victim and his family. It was a strange, confusing story that did not happen overnight.  In fact, the beginnings probably started long before Bill became a Police Officer in 1971.  Had he always had a devious side or did the job change him as it was known to do with others? I recall many years ago, when we were young officers in our early years on the Department, hearing a story about why he became a cop. He was about 9 or 10 and out walking his dog when he came across a cardboard box that contained the severed head of a young woman.  He claimed there was blood in her mouth and her eyes were terror-filled. He wondered how she had gotten into that situation.  Of course, when the local police arrived, they sent him away and he never learned anything more. After that, he said he only wanted to do things that would help save people, not harm them and as he grew up, that desire segued into becoming a cop.  Now, I am not saying I believe the story.  I honestly do not know if that really happened but I do know that he told it often enough that he had it memorized and literally would say the same sentences each time.  Were his ambitions about becoming a Cop that noble?  Who knows! Those were pretty deep thoughts for a 10-year-old.  I had my doubts.

Me, well I didn’t have such high and mighty notions about becoming a cop.  I was out of the Army and attending school part-time and working part-time and knew I needed a full-time job.  Even with the G.I. Bill, my salary was hardly enough to get along on, so when my dad called me to say he had read in the local paper that the local Police Department was hiring, I jumped at the chance and took the test.  There was no particular precedent for me becoming a cop.  There were no cops in the family history but I thought that it sounded like a good job with interesting work and I was sure it was something I could do. Having recently gotten out of the Army, I also liked the para-military aspects of the job like uniforms and chain of command.

San Gabriel

Back in the 1970s, the city of San Gabriel was one of over 80 independent cities located within the boundaries of Los Angeles County.  According to the employee handbook, San Gabriel was not a large city by any means, covering only about 4.9 square miles in size.  It was primarily a bedroom community with about 40,000 residents ranging from wealthy people in the north part of the city all the way down to fairly poor people.  The majority of homes were built right after World War II and were smaller but very nice middle-class homes.  The population was about 70% white and 30% Hispanic, with many of the Hispanic people crowded into a poorer neighborhood that was situated along the Southern Pacific railroad tracks that divided the city from east to west.  The barrio as it was called, stretched from the east side of the San Gabriel Mission Church all the way to the eastern border of town.  The San Gabriel Police Station was basically located right in the middle of the barrio.  As far as crime activity went, we had the usual amount of residential burglary, robberies, auto theft and drug activity.

San Gabriel was a historical city because of the San Gabriel Mission Church, one of the famous California Missions built by Father Junipero Serra.  It was a very important part of the community, serving almost all of the Hispanic community as well as a large Catholic congregation of white people.  It was also a major historical attraction and housed one of the very best collections of large-scale models of all the California Missions anywhere in the state.  The Mission enjoyed a fair amount of influence with the City Council and was active in many community-based events throughout the year. The city was located on the north side of the San Bernardino Freeway just about 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and south of the city of Pasadena.

Billy Joe was hired by the San Gabriel Police in early 1971, and I was hired about eight months later. To this day, I still remember our starting salary.  It was $848.00 a month. Not a lot but much more than I was making with part-time work and the G.I. Bill. Our Chief was Frank Carpenter and he had been Chief since the 1940s. He had a reputation as a taskmaster but I found him to be very fair and he was always good to me.  The second in command was our only Captain, Harry Stone.  I truly liked Harry.  He was known throughout the San Gabriel Valley as the officer who shot a man who specialized in robbing local grocery stores for many months in the early 50s.  Because of the weird costume he wore (motorcycle jacket, football helmet, black motorcycle pants and boots, with a respirator and dark goggles) he was known as the Man from Mars.  His name was Forest Ray Colson and it turned out that he had been a local Cop at one time and after being fired from the job, he took up robbing local stores.  After each robbery, he would head back to the mid-west where he would lay low at his parents’ home for a while.  Then he would come back and pull another robbery.  During such a robbery at the old Boys Market at Valley Blvd and Del Mar Avenue one night, somebody saw him and called the police.  Harry and his partner, Whitey Nelson responded and got there quickly.  Harry made his way to the back corner of the store where there was a long hallway that went back to the manager’s office.  As he entered the hall, the Man from Mars was backing out of the office at the far end of the hall and saw Harry.  He tried to jump back into the office but Harry managed to draw and fire one shot, from the hip without time to aim.  The bullet hit the Man from Mars in the left temple, killing him almost instantly. The distance was over 70 feet! The incident was so famous, it became an episode of a popular television show of the 50s called Crime Busters.

Like most of the cities within the county, San Gabriel was constantly dealing with the activities of two local Mexican gangs.  The first, Sangra was the local gang, getting its start in San Gabriel decades earlier.  The membership was small but that did not deter the gang from actively fighting over turf with the other local gang, Lomas.  Lomas was a larger gang but had its roots in Monterey Park.  Named for the hills in Monterey Park, most of the gang members lived there, south of the freeway, with a few living in the southern end of San Gabriel and there were several gathering places on our side of the freeway that kept this gang in our sights all the time.  The two gangs were engaged in a bitter rivalry over turf and to see which gang would end up dominant.  They were constantly testing each other by leaving their own areas and transgressing into parts of town considered part of the other gang’s territory.  Sangra called the members of Lomas Hillbillies and generally detested them but the fact was, they were more alike than they wanted to admit. As a result of their constant fighting, they had graduated from the days of fists fights, knives, chains, bats and such and were now using guns. You might ask where they got the guns. According to former Sangra member, Freddie Negrete, in his book, Smile Now, Cry Later: Guns, Gangs and Tattoos – My Life in Black and Gray, published in 2016, they got their guns by stealing them during the commission of residential burglaries. I would agree with that assessment as it was commonplace to find weapons in their possession and when we ran them, they turned up stolen from some residence in one of several surrounding cities. Drive-by shootings became more common than we wanted to admit.  Most of the gang members were young, many were just teenagers and some were in their early 20s. In his book, Freddie Negrete says he was jumped in to Sangra when he was 13 years old. Sangra was also known to have some older members, who seemed to stay out of daily activities but still exerted influence over the kids.  With everything else, we had to do, our officers spent a large amount of their time dealing with gang activity, especially in the early 70s.

Upon completion of his field training, Billy Joe was assigned to Uniform Patrol working graveyard shift, pretty much like every new officer, since the shift you worked was decided by the seniority you had. He would soon learn that you could plan to stay on graveyard for up to two years. Now, by the time I was hired, Bill had already been working for about 8 months.  Since he had been a Reserve Officer with the neighboring city of Alhambra for a while, he was able to hit the ground running at San Gabriel and was on his own in a very short time. 

My first day on the job was October 30, 1971 and for the next six months, I was locked into a station job because the next police academy was not scheduled to start until May, 1972.  Without certain state-mandated training, I could not go into the field and had to be content learning all the various jobs inside the station like records, communications, booking and processing prisoners and jailor duties.  The funny thing is that I was sworn in on day one, which meant I had police powers and I was also given my badge, gun and I.D. card.  It was probably not the best decision made by the Administration because I had not completed weapons training under Penal Code Section 836. My dad taught me to shoot as a boy and I had plenty of weapon’s training during my three years in the Army, but without the state training, I should not have been carrying a gun at all.

As it was, I worked every day in full uniform, including my gun belt with revolver, mace, handcuffs and I also was issued a sap, or what some people would call a Blackjack. Since I could not carry it in the jail, it remained in my locker the entire time. Although those six months taught me a lot about the work inside the station, something many field officers did not know; it also taught me that my sole desire was to get into the field.  There was no way I could be content working inside the station.  While I did, most of the field officers saw me working with the women in records and communications. I was given the nickname, Officer Doily Drawers.  There was some humor in it but I always felt it was meant to be insulting, something dreamed up by veteran officers who had no trust for rookies until they had proven themselves.

Of course, none of the officers on the Department ever called me that to my face.  I think they knew that it was an insult.  I don’t even think they were aware that I knew about it. It was a private joke and I was just one of many who had some sort of nickname. Their private jokes aside, I had a pretty strong understanding of what I needed to do, thanks to my father.  My dad had to quit school at age 15 and went to work supporting his mother and sister.  A family friend found him a job as a general roustabout with Union Oil Company.  As a result, whatever job they gave him had to be done in the presence of grown men and believe me when I tell you that the men who worked in the oil fields of the 1930s were a rough, tough bunch of guys.  That was the depression and there were many men with families to support that did not have jobs.  People looked at my dad and wondered why this kid was working and grown men were not.  Nobody knew he was the sole support for his family, since his father had left a year earlier. They handed him every dirty job they could think of. Dad immediately became known as the kid and whenever something came up nobody wanted to do, it was always, Give it to the kid!.  He did not let it get to him.  He did not despair.  He simply put his head down and worked all the harder, believing that his good work would speak for him and in the long run and he was right.  Dad always called those years the time when he paid his dues. I thought it must have taken a long time when you made just $5.00 a week!  Now, I was in a similar situation, working in a job where the officers closed ranks and made every new officer prove him or herself. To me, it was all part of the drill and I knew nothing would change until I got through the Academy and into the field.  My plan was simple.  Do the very best work I knew how to do, learn as much as possible and when I got to the Academy, graduate near the top of the class.

I can tell you this, you had to want to become a cop pretty badly to put up with all the stuff you had to go through to get hired.  There was the written test and then, if you passed, a physical agility test, which lasted most of one day.  You ran obstacle courses, climbed fences, dragged simulated bodies made of fire hose, did push-ups, pull-ups and so forth.  If you managed to pass the physical agility test, it was followed by a polygraph exam and a psych exam.  Once you got