A detective revisits the wild case of the missing Oscars statuettes 20 years later
It started with a phone call. From a panicked shipping employee. A case that caught the world’s attention and upended Hollywood.
What Zavala was remembering was just show business, a publicity stunt from a past Academy Awards telecast. The Oscars actually arrived from their Chicago manufacturer in what the detective described as a “Styrofoam sarcophagus,” packed together tightly in 10 separate crates, with the whole pallet weighing about 500 pounds. It’s not something you just stash in the trunk of a car or smuggle out under a coat.By Clarence Williams/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.
At that point, no one outside the Academy and the shipping company knew the cache of Oscars had been stolen—apart, of course, from the thieves themselves. The media and the public still had no idea. Zavala and his partner, Detective Robert Rivera, decided to visit the shipping center in Bell to question Roadway’s workers. “It was Bobby Rivera and myself and this other young new officer, Heather Arnold, who was with us. And so, we went out there and said, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening. Some merchandise was taken. There’s going to be a $25,000 reward.
That led to the first break in the case. “By this time, everyone knew,” Zavala said. “The [shipping] company was taking a lot of pressure…. Then we got this call from an attorney, saying, ‘Hey, I think I can help you. We think we know who has the stuff, but we want to be guaranteed that they’re going to get the money.’ ”
“He goes, ‘Eff-you, I ain’t saying anything,’ ” Zavala said. Hart refused their request to search the property, but they refused to leave. Her car was one that the surveillance team had seen with Pearson, the lawyer who had called to collect the reward for his anonymous client. Zavala shook his head. “Well…she was the wife of the attorney! So, now it’s all coming [together.]”
The next day, 52 of the 55 Academy Awards made their comeback appearance—beside a trash bin in L.A.’s Koreatown neighborhood.Junkman Willie Fulgear, who discovered the Oscars in a dumpster, photographed by Art Streiber at home.It was the night of Sunday, March 19, and Zavala had just gotten home. He was exhausted and looking forward to unwinding a little, but only had time for a shower before the phone rang again. “Our detective headquarters,” he said.
Also sitting in the audience, unheralded from the stage, was Zavala, who arguably did a lot more to solve the case. He had also been given tickets to the show by a very grateful Academy and brought his wife with him. Zavala still believes Fulgear was tipped off but doesn’t think of him as crooked. “I wouldn’t say crooked. I would just say, yeah, he was hurting for money and I think they sucked him into it,” Zavala said. “I knew in my heart of hearts that he knew more.”
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