Case Closed of Man's Body Found in Trunk of Car Set on Fire 1 Year Ago

One year ago today, Russell Rathert, a 50-year-old man who lived in Van Nuys, was found dead in the trunk of a blue 1989 Toyota Camry parked underneath the Ventura Freeway on Radford Avenue. The car had been set on fire.

Few clues about Rathert's death have been discovered and no suspects have been named publicly. The Los Angeles Police Department is calling the case closed.

What caused Rathert's death is unknown, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office. It may have been a homicide, or it may have been a drug overdose, coroner's investigators said. About all that is known is that Rathert died several hours before the car was set on fire at about 3 a.m. on Aug. 31, 2010, by the use of an incendiary device. Rathert's body was burned beyond recognition and it took several days for authorities to identify him.

Awakened by LAPD officers at their doors, residents of the secluded Valley Village and Studio City neighborhoods adjacent to the underpass were evacuated. They saw police and fire officials swarming over the charred wreck. FBI officials were also on hand in the event there was a bomb—meant for the soon-to-be busy  101 Freeway—in the still unopened trunk of the car.

At about 11 a.m., about eight hours after police were first called, an investigator discovered the incendiary device used to start the fire, according to police. Unsure if it was an undetonated bomb, the LAPD evacuated nearby homes again and closed the 101 freeway.

The discovery of the burned body was just the latest in a string of gruesome crimes to occur in Valley Village. On July 24, a shiv-wielding drug addict broke into the home of 34-year-old Cheree Osmanhodzic, stabbed her to death and lit her house on fire. About three months earlier on April 3, a gunman shot and on Riverside Drive. Nerses Arthur Galstyan was arrested in the killings and is facing a trial.

These killings and the discovery of Rathert's body occurred within about eight blocks of each other in what is statistically one of L.A.'s safest neighborhoods. But on Aug. 31, with the discovery of Rathert's charred remains, combined with the shocking killings of the previous months, it was hard for residents to remember that fact.

For some, like Radford Avenue resident Kenton Rand, the fire seemed like more of the same.

"I just hoped it wasn't another murder," Rand said.

Others, like Steve Berglund, were frightened to see the violence that was plaguing other parts of the neighborhood come so close to his home.

"I had just watched The Girl Who Played With Fire, so to come out of my house and see the car on fire scared the bejesus out of me," he said. "You cannot believe how much law enforcement there was. There was scores of them."

The case was originally in the hands of homicide detectives with the LAPD North Hollywood Division, but within a few weeks had been ruled a simple arson and transferred to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

"A lot of things could have happened, but it's very possible that this guy overdosed on some drugs and his friends suddenly got afraid and they drove the car over to this area and set it on fire," said Valley Village LAPD Senior Lead Officer Manuel Arreygue. 

Investigators had learned that Rathert was an aging drug addict who, by his own account, had been using drugs since childhood and had spent half his life in prison.

The decision to transfer the case to the LAFD did not sit well with Derek Chew, the LAFD arson investigator who was assigned to the case. When reached in the fall by a Patch reporter, Chew expressed outrage and dismay that the case was on his desk. Chew, a 35-year veteran of the LAFD, said he believed Rathert's death was obviously a homicide and said it should be investigated by the LAPD, not the LAFD's arson unit.

Arreygue said the case was being handled as an arson investigation because the coroner's office found no evidence of foul play and determined that Rathert died well before the fire had started. According to one coroner's office spokesman, it was "assumed" in the autopsy that Rathert died of a heroin overdose.

What actually caused Rathert's death, however, is unknown.

The coroner's office could not determine how much heroin Rathert had in his system at the time. The autopsy also revealed Rathert had a .04 percent blood-alcohol content and traces of carbon monoxide in his blood, though not enough to be lethal. He also suffered from heart disease.

Chew retired in March, and at some point the case was transferred back to the North Hollywood Division's homicide unit and the desk of Detective Mark O’Donnell. Patch called O'Donnell for weeks in preparation for this story and on Tuesday O'Donnell said the case was closed. O'Donnell said he would check the case file and provide details on the case, but Patch has been unable to reach him again. 

According to a report by KABC Channel 7 News, the car in which Rathert was found was registered to a Whittier resident, but investigators had not been able to contact the man several weeks after Rathert's death. It's unknown if they ever did.

Police also have not revealed details about Rathert. Patch has tried without result to learn more about him. Last fall, a Patch reporter found someone who knew a friend of Rathert. When reached by phone, that friend had no interest in speaking about him. The friend said the car fire was probably the result of Rathert falling asleep in his car with a lit cigarette and that Patch should stop asking questions about the incident. The friend could not explain how Rathert'd body could have been in the trunk if his death was an accident. 

Patch went to the Harbor City neighborhood where we had been told Rathert was originally from and knocked on doors. No one said they knew him. We emailed people who had posted condolences in the comments section of a few online stories about Rathert's death. No one returned the messages. We cold-called every "Rathert" in the phone book, more than 40 numbers. No one who picked up said they were related to him. We knew it was possible he had been staying at the Cri-Help drug treatment facility in North Hollywood at the time of this death. We called there, but citing patient confidentiality, the facility refused to confirm whether he had stayed there.

The only personal details found about Rathert so far are what he appears to have written himself in a December 2008 post on the website Crossing the Digital Divide (CDD), a nonprofit aid group. Rathert hinted at having a troubled family background and his attempts to get clean to become a drug counselor for young people.

"My father was always in prison," Rathert wrote. "I started using drugs when I was 12 years old and ended up quitting school in the 7th grade so my education is pretty limited."

Rathert was enrolled in CDD's program, which provides patients in drug and alcohol treatment centers with computer training for better job prospects. He wrote that he wanted to become a drug counselor "so I can help them to turn their lives around while they are young so hopefully they don't have to go through some of the things that I have."

He also wrote that he had been in and out of prison for the past 25 years.

Rathert participated in CDD's classes while undergoing rehabilitation at Cri-Help. In the post, he thanked Cri-Help and CDD instructors "for giving me the skills to change my life because without them and the program of Narcotics Anonymous and the fellowship of other addicts I would either be back in prison or probably dead. So thank you CDD and Cri-Help for helping me and taking the time to help change peoples lives."

With drugs and alcohol being found in his system when he died, it appeared his struggles with narcotics continued after the post in 2008.