Click the following links to advance to the next chapter in Christa's story:

The Childhood Years
The New York City Years
Let’s Go for Broke
The Los Angeles Years
The Murder
The Original Investigation
The Cold Case Investigation
My Investigation
How You Can Help

THE ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION

 
Lying flat on her stomach and partially tucked under a car belonging to the girlfriend of the homeowner Sandy Smith, Christa had bled profusely onto the street. We don’t yet know potentially valuable insights on the crime scene, including whether there were blood droppings or trails in the front of the house and leading to the eventual destination of her death.

Christa’s purse was missing and never recovered. This has led to speculation that the attacker might have been after her diary, which Christa is said to have kept in her possession at all times. This diary contained recounts of names and sexual encounters with many powerful people. If Christa had planned to publish this diary - or use it as a tool in a blackmailing scheme - it could provide yet another motive for her murder.

Detective Larry Gandsey was assigned to the case. From the start, it was obvious that the murder was carried out with a great deal of rage. It looked like a personal killing, and not a simple mugging gone wrong. Christa displayed a series of defensive wounds on her hands, arms and shins; it appears as though she used her karate training to fight back hard. She also showed signs of being beaten with a blunt object about the face and head, which opened the door to the notion of two killers working in tandem.

Christa was clutching her keys under her body. Detective Gandsey took the key and tried to use it on several cars in the area. It didn’t take long to find the matching vehicle in front of the house, which belonged to her roommate Stephanie. At this point, detectives had no way of knowing whether the dead girl was Stephanie or someone else.

Stephanie returned home from her weekend beach getaway to find her apartment in disarray. Soon, she was contacted by the police and asked to identify the body of her roommate. Not wanting to be stuck with such a final image of her friend, she declined. In our conversation with Sandy Smith, he claimed to have identified the body later that morning.

Christa arrived on the coroner’s table as Jane Doe #9. The full body drawings show notations of at least 12 wounds to the front of her body, and another ten to the posterior.

Her autopsy was performed by Dr. Robert Zedelis.

My conversation with Dr. Zedelis highlighted a few interesting pieces of information. Some of her wounds suggest Christa was already face down on the ground when some of the wounds were inflicted on her back. The angle of wound #13 suggests the killer was standing above her on her left side. Wound #22 suggests the killer had moved to Christa’s right side. If Christa was already incapacitated (potentially from a slash to her right jugular vein), then these repeated stab wounds to her back suggest massive overkill on the part of her assailant.

Christa also suffered wounds about her head and face. These were inflicted by heavy punches or a blunt object like a hammer. There were multiple points of injury on the left side of her face, and a bash to the right side of her head that damaged the scalp tissue, but did not fracture the skull. There were no signs of internal bleeding within her skull.

According to Dr. Zedelis, there is no definitive means of determining whether the killer was right or left handed. The notion of two attackers also seems highly speculative.

Christa’s toxicology showed no signs of barbiturates or alcohol. These were the standard tests performed in 1977. Unless they were specifically requested, they did not test for other drugs such as cocaine or MDMA.

Her swabs indicated no signs of unprotected sexual intercourse. This could be a relevant observation given Blair Aaronson’s admission that is detailed in a previous chapter.

The autopsy listed her cause of death as exsanguinating hemorrhage from multiple stab wounds to the neck, chest and abdomen. A few of these wounds would have proved fatal on their own. The time of death was listed at 1:35 am.

Following the examination, Christa’s remains were given to her family back in Wisconsin, and entombed there at Forest Home Cemetery with the inscription “Wohlfeil, Sandra C.H. Clements, 1949 - 1977, Loved Always”.

The investigation kicked into gear later that day. The investigators questioned Sandy Smith, who told them he had retired earlier than usual the previous evening and was hard to wake up. Please visit the chapter titled Our Investigation for more details on Sandy’s alibi.

The neighbors were questioned next. One claimed to have heard a man and a woman arguing on the street at the time of the murder. Another earwitness - actor Jon Gries (Napolean Dynamite) - said he had heard a series of blood-curdling screams. His father - director Tom Gries (Helter Skelter) - had recently passed away, and he had moved into his mother’s house with his siblings to keep her company after the loss. When he heard the screams, he grabbed his father’s gun and stepped out onto the lawn of his house, eyes peering into the direction of the commotion. He saw nothing, and went back into his house. Police told him he would have witnessed the murder taking place if he had stepped farther out into the street,

From the earliest days of the investigation, Gandsey felt certain that Christa’s killer was also responsible for the murder of high-profile actor Sal Mineo. Mineo had been killed in the same area exactly one year earlier. A suspect in the Mineo murder was not apprehended until after Christa’s murder. His name was Lionel Ray Williams. All these years later, Williams is now a free man. He was never questioned in connection to Christa’s murder, but it is doubtful that he was involved in any way. The M.O. is completely different.

Deep into the original investigation, detectives happened upon a big break. It came from a friend of Rudy Mazella - the man who had been rooming with her keyboardist Blair Aaronson. The friend claimed that Rudy had confessed to killing Christa. But when he was brought in for questioning, Rudy denied his involvement in the murder. When cold case investigators attempted to question Rudy further in the early 2000s, they discovered he had passed away.

The investigation lay stagnant and eventually became inactive. Then Christa’s daughter decided to place a phone call to the cold case division of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

Next chapter: THE COLD CASE INVESTIGATION