Suspect in American Idol exec killing used couple's gun and then called 911 after deadly shooting
Raymond Boodarian, 22, allegedly used a gun owned by Kaye and her husband, Thomas Deluca, to kill the couple, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman revealed Monday during a town hall, according to Eyewitness News.
After the fatal shooting of the 70-year-old pair, Boodarian called 911 from his cellphone and provided his name, which was how police tracked him down, Hochman added.
"We're having phenomenal numbers on crime reduction. That being said when two wonderful people end up dead in their own home, those crime statistics fall kind of flat," LAPD Deputy Chief Marla Ciuffetelli told town hall attendees.
The LAPD said they've ramped up patrols throughout the Encino area, where the couple lived, as some residents now say they are worried about crime in the neighborhood.
'The crime is out of control,' Encino resident Deborah Palace told Eyewitness News. 'You don't even feel safe going to sleep in your own home.'
Boodarian, who had battery charges against him dismissed before he was placed in a conservatorship last year, was arrested five days after the killing 'without incident,' police said.
Three misdemeanor cases against Boodarian were dismissed last year, with court documents revealing that in the months prior, he was deemed mentally incompetent. After a mental health evaluation, he was then placed in a conservatorship, allowing another adult to be in charge of his major life decisions, according to NBC Los Angeles.
The mental health evaluation's findings were not made public, but court records indicated that he was released from jail.
Boodarian's also faced charges of brandishing a knife and criminal threats against his stepfather in 2023, as well as battery against his mother and sister in 2024. All three misdemeanor cases were dismissed late last year.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office declined to say how Boodarian's mental health evaluation may affect their ability to prosecute the new murder case.
Authorities said Kaye and Deluca were shot to death on July 10, around the same time that a neighbor called 911 to report seeing a man scaling a wall that surrounds their home.
'While there were no signs of forced entry or trouble at the location during the investigation, it is now believed that the suspect had gained entry into the residence through an unlocked door,' police said.
Kaye and Deluca had returned home to find the suspect, which ultimately led to a deadly confrontation. Boodarian is believed to have run away after the shooting.
The couple hadn't been seen for several days when officers were called back to the home for a welfare check and found their bodies. According to local reports, the pair was found in different rooms of their home, with Deluca in the bathroom and Kaye in the pantry.
The couple died from multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said.
Kaye worked as a music supervisor for American Idol from 2002 to 2023, according to her IMDb biography. She contributed to nearly 300 episodes of the singing competition show. She also won three Guild of Music Supervisors awards for her contributions to the reality show.
Before working on the talent show, Kaye launched her own record company, SyncroniCity, in 2000.
Deluca also had a music career, working as a songwriter and musician. His album 'Down To The Wire' was released by Epic Records in 1986, according to his website. His most recent effort, 'Street Rock,' came out in 2022.
A spokesperson for American Idol said they were 'devastated to hear of Robin and her dear husband, Tom's, passing.'
"Robin has been a cornerstone of the 'Idol' family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her. Robin will remain in our hearts forever and we share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time,' the statement continued.
Their deaths are being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department's Valley Bureau Homicide Division.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
3 minutes ago
- The Independent
FACT FOCUS: Trump claims cashless bail increases crime, but data is inconclusive
As his administration faces mounting pressure to release Justice Department files related the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, President Donald Trump is highlighting a different criminal justice issue — cashless bail. He suggested in a Truth Social post this week that eliminating cash bail as a condition of pretrial release from jail has led to rising crime in U.S. cities that have enacted these reforms. However, studies have shown no clear link. Here's a closer look at the facts. TRUMP: 'Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!' THE FACTS: Data has not determined the impact of cashless bail on crime rates. But experts say it is incorrect to claim that there is an adverse connection. 'I don't know of any valid studies corroborating the President's claim and would love to know what the Administration offers in support,' said Kellen Funk, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies pretrial procedure and bail bonding. 'In my professional judgment I'd call the claim demonstrably false and inflammatory.' Jeff Clayton, executive director of the American Bail Coalition, the main lobbying arm of the cash bail industry, also pointed to a lack of evidence. 'Studies are inconclusive in terms of whether bail reforms have had an impact on overall crime numbers,' he said. 'This is due to pretrial crime being a small subset of overall crime. It is also difficult to categorize reforms as being 'cashless' or not, i.e., policies where preventative detention is introduced as an alternative to being held on bail.' Different jurisdictions, different laws In 2023, Illinois became the first state to completely eliminate cash bail when the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law abolishing it. The move was part of an expansive criminal justice overhaul adopted in 2021 known as the SAFE-T Act. Under the change, a judge decides whether to release the defendant prior to their trial, weighing factors such as their criminal charges, if they could pose any danger to others and if they are considered a flight risk. Loyola University of Chicago's Center for Criminal Justice published a 2024 report on Illinois' new cashless bail policy, one year after it went into effect. It acknowledges that there is not yet enough data to know what impact the law has had on crime, but that crime in Illinois did not increase after its implementation. Violent and property crime declined in some counties. A number of other jurisdictions, including New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., have nearly eliminated cash bail or limited its use. Many include exceptions for high-level crimes. Proponents of eliminating cash bail describe it as a penalty on poverty, suggesting that the wealthy can pay their way out of jail to await trial while those with fewer financial resources have to sit it out behind bars. Critics have argued that bail is a time-honored way to ensure defendants released from jail show up for court proceedings. They warn that violent criminals will be released pending trial, giving them license to commit other crimes. A lack of consensus Studies have shown mixed results regarding the impact of cashless bail on crime. Many focus on the recidivism of individual defendants rather than overall crime rates. A 2024 report published by the Brennan Center for Justice saw 'no statistically significant relationship' between bail reform and crime rates. It looked at crime rate data from 2015 through 2021 for 33 cities across the U.S., 22 of which had instituted some type of bail reform. Researchers used a statistical method to determine if crime rates had diverged in those with reforms and those without. Ames Grawert, the report's co-author and senior counsel in the Brennan Center's Justice Program, said this conclusion "holds true for trends in crime overall or specifically violent crime.' Similarly, a 2023 paper published in the American Economic Journal found no evidence that cash bail helps ensure defendants will show up in court or prevents crime among those who are released while awaiting trial. The paper evaluated the impact of a 2018 policy instituted by the Philadelphia's district attorney that instructed prosecutors not to set bail for certain offenses. A 2019 court decree in Harris County, Texas, requires most people charged with a misdemeanor to be released without bail while awaiting trial. The latest report from the monitoring team responsible for tracking the impact of this decision, released in 2024, notes that the number of people arrested for misdemeanors has declined by more than 15% since 2015. The number of those rearrested within one year has similarly declined, with rearrest rates remaining stable in recent years. Asked what data Trump was using to support his claim, the White House pointed to a 2022 report from the district attorney's office in Yolo County, California, that looked at how a temporary cashless bail system implemented across the state to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in courts and jails impacted recidivism. It found that out of 595 individuals released between April 2020 and May 2021 under this system, 70.6% were arrested again after they were released. A little more than half were rearrested more than once. A more recent paper, published in February by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, also explored the effects of California's decision to suspend most bail during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reports that implementation of this policy 'caused notable increases in both the likelihood and number of rearrests within 30 days.' However, a return to cash bail did not impact the number of rearrests for any type of offense. The paper acknowledges that other factors, such as societal disruption from the pandemic, could have contributed to the initial increase. Many contributing factors It is difficult to pinpoint specific explanations for why crime rises and falls. The American Bail Coalition's Clayton noted that other policies that have had a negative impact on crime, implemented concurrently with bail reforms, make it 'difficult to isolate or elevate one or more causes over the others.' Paul Heaton, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies criminal justice interventions, had a similar outlook. 'Certainly there are some policy levers that people look at — the size of the police force and certain policies around sentencing,' he said. 'But there's a lot of variation in crime that I think even criminologists don't necessarily fully understand.'
The Independent
3 minutes ago
- The Independent
Takeaways: US military enters gray area with expanded role at Mexico-US border
President Donald Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring illegal crossings into the U.S. at its southern border. The strategy is playing out in Arizona's border community of Nogales, where an Army scout used an optical scope this week to find a man atop the border wall and sounded the alarm. As the man lowered himself toward U.S. soil between coils of concertina wire, shouts rang out and a U.S. Border Patrol SUV sped toward the wall — warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico. Such sightings of illegal entry are growing rarer and the rate of apprehensions at the border has fallen to a 60-year low. 'Deterrence is actually boring,' 24-year old Army Sgt. Ana Harker-Molina said, voicing the tedium felt by some soldiers over the sporadic sightings during two days in which The Associated Press embedded with the military on the border. Still, Harker-Molina, an immigrant who came from Panama at age 12 and is now a U.S. citizen, said she believes the deployment of U.S. troops discourages crossings by their mere presence. Military mission expands U.S. troop deployments at the border have tripled to 7,600 and include every branch of the military — even as the number of attempted illegal crossings plummets and Trump has authorized funding for an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents, offering $10,000 signing and retention bonuses. The military's expanded mission is guided from a new command center at a remote Army intelligence training base alongside southern Arizona's Huachuca Mountains. A community hall there has been transformed into a bustling war room of battalion commanders and staff with digital maps pinpointing military camps and movements along the nearly 2,000-mile border. Until now border enforcement had been the domain of civilian law enforcement, with the military only intermittently stepping in. But since April, large swaths of border have been designated militarized zones, empowering U.S. troops to apprehend immigrants and others accused of trespassing on Army, Air Force or Navy bases, and authorizing additional criminal charges that can mean prison time. The two-star general leading the new mission says troops work closely with U.S. Border Patrol agents in high-traffic areas for illegal crossings — and can deploy rapidly to remote, unguarded terrain. 'We don't have a (labor) union, there's no limit on how many hours we can work in a day, how many shifts we can man,' said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann. 'We can fly people into incredibly remote areas now that we see the cartels shifting' course. Stopping the 'got-aways' At Nogales, Army scouts patrolled the border Tuesday in full battle gear — helmet, M5 service rifle, bullet-resistant vest — with the right to use deadly force if attacked under standing military rules integrated into the border mission. Underfoot, smugglers for decades routinely attempted to tunnel into stormwater drains to ferry contraband into the U.S. Naumann's command post oversees an armada of 117 armored Stryker vehicles, more than 35 helicopters and a half-dozen long-distance drones that can survey the border day and night with sensors to pinpoint people wandering the desert. Marine Corps engineers are adding concertina wire to slow crossings, as the Trump administration reboots border wall construction. Naumann said the focus is on stopping 'got-aways' who evade authorities to disappear into the U.S. in a race against the clock that can last seconds in urban areas as people vanish into smuggling vehicles, or several days in the dense wetland thickets of the Rio Grande or the vast desert and mountainous wilderness of Arizona. The rate of apprehensions at the border is slowing down, Naumann acknowledges. But, he says, it would be wrong to let up, that crossings may rebound with the end of scorching summer weather. 'We're having some successes, we are trending positively,' he said of the mission with no fixed end-date. Militarized zones are 'a gray area' The Trump administration is using the military broadly to boost its immigration operations, from guarding federal buildings in Los Angeles against protests over ICE detentions, to assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida to plans to hold detained immigrants on military bases. Dan Maurer, a law professor at Ohio Northern University and a retired U.S. Army judge advocate officer, says it's all part of a 'muscular' strategy by Trump to show his political base he is serious about a campaign promise to fix immigration. The results are both norm-breaking and unusual, he said. The militarized zones at the border sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil. 'It's in that gray area, it may be a violation — it may not be. The military's always had the authority to arrest people and detain them on military bases,' said Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and a former Air Force judge.
Daily Mail
4 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney speaks out after DOJ meeting
Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is angling for a pardon from President Donald Trump after she 'didn't hold back' during secret questioning from the Justice Department. Maxwell, 63, completed a second day of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday afternoon. Attorney David Oscar Markus claimed that his client spoke with Blanche about '100 different people' related to Epstein's child [sexual] trafficking ring. 'They asked about every possible thing you could imagine – everything,' Markus insisted. He also said Maxwell is being used as the 'scapegoat' in the entire Epstein case and has been 'treated unfairly for the last five years.' Her attorney said that they had not put in a formal request with the White House for a pardon for Maxwell following the conclusion of Day 2 of questioning. But Markus didn't rule one out completely saying 'things are happening so quickly.' 'The president said earlier he has the power to do so, we hope he exercises that power in the right way,' he added. Blanche flew down to Florida on Wednesday as President Donald Trump 's administration continues to take heat for the alleged 'cover-up' of the Epstein files review. The No. 2 at the Justice Department met at the courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida on Thursday with Maxwell , who is serving a 20-year sentence for her crimes. After their meeting, he announced on X that he would have a second day of meetings with Maxwell and her attorney on Friday. Markus said on Friday that Maxwell has not asked for anything in exchange for speaking with the government about what she knows. 'No offers have been made,' he assured. 'We haven't asked for anything.' 'She literally answered every question,' Markus went on. 'She was asked maybe about 100 different people, she answered questions about everybody and she didn't hold anything back.' It's not clear when the DOJ will release what was learned in the meetings. Markus said Maxwell is grateful to have met with Blanche. She is continuing to appeal her [sexual] trafficking conviction. The latest effort was opposed by the DOJ last week as she sought for the Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that she shouldn't have been charged due a 2008 plea deal Epstein struck with the court. On Thursday after their meeting with Blanche, Markus said that Maxwell answers every question the deputy AG had for his client. President Donald Trump was about a potential pardon for Maxwell on Friday morning amid Blanche's meetings. 'I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I haven't thought about,' the president responded.
