Ryan said he hadn't been thinking much about his brief visit to California or the murder -- " 'cause I didn't do it."
"You better be thinking a whole bunch about it," Monsue replied. "Because your ass is gonna be back in California in jail unless I can get some straight answers out of you."
Monsue never got those answers. In fact, he quickly lost interest in Ryan, at least in part because of a mistaken belief that the youth had no criminal record.
The LAPD case file -- the "murder book," in which detectives document every step in an investigation -- indicates that Monsue ran a records search for Ryan using the wrong birth date.
A handwritten note in the file reads: "John Michael Ryan, 1/24/66, No record."
A search using Ryan's correct birth date -- April 24, 1966 -- would have revealed that he had been convicted of robbing a teenager at knifepoint 10 months before Dorka Lisker was killed.
It happened in the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant in Ventura County. When the victim asked why he should surrender his $12, Ryan allegedly replied: "I will kill you if you don't."
Apparently unaware of this incident and Ryan's earlier crimes, Monsue wrote him off as a suspect.
Ryan went on his troubled way. In 1986, he followed a woman off a commuter train in San Francisco, grabbed her arm and threatened her with a knife.
"You don't want to make me angry," Ryan said, according to a sworn declaration by the victim.
When the woman broke free, he slashed at her with the knife, causing feathers to fly from her down jacket. Ryan was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to six years in prison.
In 1993, he took a sledgehammer to his stepmother's car in Florida -- and attacked a police officer who responded, biting him on the thumb.
In 1996, back in California, Ryan took his life with a combination of alcohol and heroin. He left a note in which he thanked his roommate, gave instructions for what to do with his belongings, and told a friend that he loved him.
"F ... everybody else" were his parting words.
Ryan's mother, who still lives in Ventura County, spoke with Times reporters on condition that she not be identified. She said she did not want to be publicly associated with her son and his crimes.
She said she has always suspected that Mike killed Dorka Lisker. Once, she said, she confronted him with her suspicions, and he insisted he was innocent.
She did not believe him.
