Part 33: Local Indian Tribe Investigated In ‘The Octopus’ Murders
Three people were executed in 1981 at a Rancho Mirage home off Bob Hope Drive. There are few clues and no arrests.
Murder victim Fred Alvarez was Vice Chairman of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. Back then, the tribe had a card room. Today, they have Fantasy Springs Casino.
Alvarez’s friend, Ralph Boger, was also murdered. He was likely at the wrong place at the wrong time. His daughter Rachel was never satisfied with the lack of progress in the murder case.
“When I was 16, I decided to go and figure out what was going on with all this and I went down to the murder scene and to the reservation. A week later, I was getting death threats,” said Begley.
Fred Alvarez was planning to blow the whistle on a business partnership between defense contractor Wackenhut Services and Cabazon Manager John Phillip Nichols to form Cabazon Arms. Nichols allegedly planned on using Indian land to test and build pistols, assault rifles, sniper guns and rocket launchers. The partnership was interested in biological weapons that could be deployed in small countries.
“I’m more shocked than anything. I had no idea these things were going on. Most of America doesn’t know these things are going on,” said Begley. “It’s still going on to this day. It’s a big web of corruption.”
To help solve a 28 year old murder, Rachel used the internet to contact government insiders and gather documents, posting some of them on her website, www.desertfae.com
The leaked documents she obtained were enough for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Cold Case Division to re-open the case early this year.
Begley explained, “In this, there’s been several murders. Lots and lot of murders. People looking into my Dad’s murder and the things surrounding it. I think, morally, I can’t let this drop. I feel that my Dad, Fred, Patty and all these other people murdered in this, they deserve some justice. If it takes one person to try and bring that about, then so be it.”
It wasn’t so easy to reopen old cases. News Channel 3 recently obtained an email written by a Riverside County Sheriff’s Detective. We’re not revealing his name to protect his identity. The detective writes he “doesn’t want to continue on the case based on the number of people who have met an untimely demise while doing so.”
It is easy to dismiss Rachel as a “conspiracy theorist,” somebody so intent on finding her dad’s killer as to dismiss what may have happened in 1981 was a brutal yet random act. But when a trained detective with 18 years experience wonders in his emails if he’ll be “suicided” like DA Investigator David McGowan and asks if “he’s just another lamb to the slaughter,” he’s running scared.
Rachel says she’s ready to face her fears. “I even have things in place should anything happen to me, to where this will not drop,” she adds.
if you’ve missed any part of this 33 part exclusive investigation more than one year in the making, click here.
