"You've got to keep it simple, stupid," Monsue said. "Usually, people are killed by people close to them."
He said the criminalist's finding that the bloody footprint in the bathroom was not Lisker's stirred his curiosity, "but I would not draw any conclusions ... until I did some work on it."
Monsue said he was fed up with answering questions about his investigation.
"I've got nothing to lose now. I've got my 30 years on, OK?.... My pension is in the bank. But I'm getting very tired of trying to explain this over and over and over and over."
A Stunning Discovery
The missing grocery money has been a recurring issue in People vs. Lisker. At the trial, Rabichow told jurors it was not in Dorka's purse, indicating that Bruce stole it.
Mulcahy said the failure to find the money was a glaring weakness in the prosecution's case. If Lisker took the money, where was it? he asked.
Years later, Monsue told the parole board it had turned up in the attic.
The Times learned recently that the money may have been in Dorka Lisker's purse all along.
Three weeks after Bruce was convicted in 1985, a court clerk named B.J. Wilson conducted a thorough search of the purse before putting it in storage along with other evidence.
Wilson snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and dug through the black patent-leather handbag. She'd pull something out, then write it down.
"If there's a toothpick, I write 'toothpick,' " Wilson, now retired, said in an interview. "If there's a piece of gum. I write 'gum.' "
And so she did.
"3 emery boards, granola bar, 2 pencils, plastic bag ... ," reads her three-page handwritten list, which The Times found on microfilm in a court archive in downtown Los Angeles. "Red & orange magnifying glass, cookies in plastic wrap, Kleenexes ..."
Wilson placed an asterisk beside the last entry:
"Also found in brn wallet compartment: 5 $20.00 bills -- 1 ten-dollar bill, 1 five-dollar bill & 5 one-dollar bills. Total $120.00."
Told of the discovery, Rabichow said he was stunned.
"It was my habit to look through the exhibits personally. I never introduced something without looking through it, because you never know," he said. "Quite honestly, I'm a little bit upset with myself."
Visiting the Scene
When he retired from the district attorney's office in 2003, Rabichow didn't look back. He worked on his tennis game and wore himself out trying to keep up with his young daughter.
