Crime Beat

most. He has followed leads across the country but never made an arrest. He has carefully investigated and traced potential suspects, only to learn that, apparently by grim coincidence, they too had been killed.
    Orozco has two file drawers filled with reports, notes and evidence on the case to show for a decade of investigation. But even after 10 years, he doesn’t need to open the boxes to recall the details. He can even recall what he was doing—driving his family to an ice cream parlor after a Father’s Day dinner—when his electronic pager beeped and he was called to the parking garage in North Hollywood.
    “This case has been my biggest challenge,” Orozco said. “It won’t lie down and die.
    “You get a case like this maybe once in a lifetime. How often do you read about a Mafia hit, especially in L.A., with the intrigue of Vegas and the cops being followed by the bad guys? But I knew from the beginning it would be tough. As soon as I walked into that garage and saw that Rolls, I knew I was in deep.”
    In life, Vic Weiss presented the image of success. Raised in the Pasadena area—where he went to high school with longtime friend Tarkanian—Weiss first became successful in real estate and insurance ventures and was later known as a part owner in Ford and Rolls-Royce dealerships in Van Nuys. His red-and-white Rolls had a gold interior. He wore a diamond ring and a Rolex watch. He was known as a guy who always picked up the tab after dinner or drinks with friends and business associates.
    Sports Negotiations a Hobby
    Weiss became prominent in sports circles beginning in 1973 when he bought the contract of welterweight boxing contender Armando Muniz. Though not a professional sports agent, Weiss handled contract negotiations for his friend Tarkanian as a hobby. It was that hobby that brought him to the negotiating table with Cooke and Buss at the Beverly Comstock Hotel on June 14, 1979.
    According to police accounts of the meeting, details of the agreement to bring Tarkanian to the Lakers were written by Weiss and Cooke on a piece of paper that Weiss dropped into his briefcase when he left.
    “He was probably confident as he left,” Orozco says. “Negotiations went well.”
    Weiss was to go to dinner with his wife, Rose, but first, police say, he planned to call Tarkanian, who was waiting at a Long Beach hotel for word on the negotiations. Tarkanian never got the call, and the talks would never go further. The Lakers eventually hired another coach.
    Weiss was reported missing by his wife, but there was no sign of him until four days later when a security guard spotted his Rolls in the garage of the Sheraton Universal hotel. After Weiss’ decomposed body was discovered and removed, detectives found no clues to what had happened.
    Weiss’ wallet and briefcase were gone, but his diamond ring and watch had not been taken. That led police to rule out robbery as a motive. Cooke, Buss and Tarkanian were quickly eliminated as having any involvement. That left police with the mystery.
    But the Rolls-Royce, though clean of evidence, generated a lead in the case. Several people who had learned of the slaying in the media called police and said they remembered seeing the distinctive car on the day Weiss disappeared, Orozco says. Through these witnesses, police were able to chart Weiss’ path from Beverly Hills along Beverly Glen Boulevard to Ventura Boulevard and west into Encino.
    Mysterious Tall Man
    A witness told police that he had seen the Rolls pull to the curb on a street in Encino and a white Cadillac with three men in it stop behind. The witness said Weiss got out of his car and two men—one described as a 6-foot, 6-inch blond—got out of the Cadillac.
    The witness said the blond man angrily pointed a finger in Weiss’ face as he spoke to him. After a few moments Weiss got back in his car, the blond man got in the backseat behind him and the third man got in the front. Then the Rolls and the Cadillac drove away.
    As detectives delved into Weiss’ background, they became confident that the witness had seen Weiss’ killers. They learned that Weiss maintained a lifestyle that belied his true financial worth. They learned that many of his associates were involved in organized crime.
    Orozco says that Weiss had no financial interest in the car dealerships he reportedly owned; he was merely a paid consultant or promotions man. An associate owned the house where he lived in Encino, and his