At dawn on the eve of her high school graduation, the battered body of 18-year-old Teak Dyer was found on the floor of a Pacific Palisades bathroom.
Before day's end, a security guard who told police he had "stumbled upon" the bloody scene was arrested and later charged with the murder of the young woman.
Now, more than two years after the crime that shocked Westsiders and sparked efforts to tighten controls on the private security guard industry, Rodney Darnell Garmanian--also charged with soliciting the murders of a judge, prosecutor and investigator while in custody--is on trial for his life.
The emotion-laden proceedings, which began last week and are expected to last well into next year, offer a glimpse into the less-than-storybook lifestyles of affluent teen-agers, the workings of an unregulated cadre of gun-toting security guards, and the private anguish of two sets of parents seated on opposite sides of the Santa Monica courtroom.
The tone of the trial was set by Deputy Dist. Atty. Lauren Weis, who told the six-man, six-woman jury that the victim's last night--June 21, 1988--began as "a night of joyous celebration," capped by a Palisades High graduation party at the Santa Monica Pier carousel.
"They toasted to life and their futures," the prosecutor said, as the girl's parents wept in the front row. "No one could know that Teak Dyer \o7 had \f7 no future."
Her father, Rod Dyer, is a noted graphics artist; her mother, Jackie Dyer, worked as comptroller for film producer Steve Tisch before moving to Northern California.
Weis said the evidence will show that the former MacGuard night patrolman accosted the girl while on duty, attempted to rape her in the locked bathroom of the Topa Building in the Palisades village, handcuffed and beat her when she rebuffed his advances, and killed her with three shots from his service revolver to avoid arrest.
Garmanian is charged separately with trying to arrange the contract killings of Los Angeles Municipal Judge David Horwitz, Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss and Los Angeles Police Detective John Rockwood in the fall of 1988, again, said Weis, "to save his own head."
Tapes of radio transmissions on the night of the murder, and testimony from Garmanian's supervisor and other guards, show that he failed to maintain contact with his office at about the time witnesses said they heard noises similar to gunshots. The defendant reported finding the victim's partially nude body on his routine early-morning rounds by radioing, "I've got, uh, I guess, a 187 here," a reference to state Penal Code Section 187--murder.
