Where the Murder Lies: Death & Deception in West Hollywood

Interview with authors Burl Barer and Frank C. Girardot about their book Where the Murder Lies. The 2004 murder of a retired Los Angeles schoolteacher never made the evening news. Within hours, arrests were made, charges were filed, and a speedy conviction sent Jimmy Kitlas, an incredibly shy special-needs teenager with no criminal history, to prison.

Twenty years later, a woman named Kelley Leigh asked Barer and Girardot to investigate. She believed the case’s rapid resolution concealed a deeper and more troubling narrative—one marked by deception, manipulation, dishonesty, and a profound disregard for truth and justice.

Of the last three people to see the victim alive, only one had both the motive and the opportunity to strangle him to death—and it wasn’t Jimmy Kitlas. What begins with a body on a bed leads to a bizarre scheme to steal a fortune in gold, a plot to smuggle MDMA, and an astonishing connection involving the American Mafia and the Russian Mob in an alleged attempt to defraud the U.S. government out of billions of dollars.

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Kosmic Media Production

Producer - Jacy Nova and Thom Dre

Audio Producer - Christopher Lang

Sound Engineer - Parker Ginn

Website - Death by Misadventure

Contact - jacynova at gmail.com