Dekraai Victims' Survivors Rally At OC District Attorney's Office

SEAL BEACH, CA — A small group of survivors gathered outside the Orange County District Attorney's Office, Wednesday, calling for District Attorney Todd Spitzer's resignation. The group focused on a video of Spitzer praising the two retiring prosecutors whose handling of the case against mass murderer Scott Dekraai helped him to evade the death penalty.

Widower Paul Wilson, whose wife Christy was one of the eight people killed in Dekraai's shooting rampage at a hair salon in 2011, aims to hold prosecutors accountable for the mistakes that helped Orange County's worst mass murderer evade the death penalty.

Since 2011, he has worked for justice for his wife. First, he supported former DA Tony Rackauckas, but after the death penalty case fell apart, he supported Rackauckas's challenger Todd Spitzer. Now, he is calling for Spitzer to resign, once again feeling betrayed by the apparent differences between actions and words of the district attorney.

Wilson said he has kept multiple text messages from Spitzer, who, he said, befriended him during his election campaign. Wilson noted he agreed to do campaign ads and robo calls for Spitzer because he believed Spitzer would crack down on corruption.

"I really thought he was my friend," Wilson said. "He promised me that Dan Wagner and Scott Simmons had no business being in his office."

Spitzer attended their retirement party, ladling praise on the two and putting the blame on Orange County sheriff's deputies.

"We want Todd Spitzer to be held accountable," Wilson said at the rally. "He's a liar and a cheat, and used me and betrayed me, and I won't allow it."

During the trial against Orange County's most infamous mass murderer, Dekraai pleaded guilty to targeting and killing his ex-wife and seven others at a Seal Beach hair salon. Dekraai faced the death penalty until the Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders raised questions about the use of a "jailhouse snitch," leading to a scandal that upended the case along with dozens of others. In the end, Dekraai's life was spared with a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Both Attorney Scott Sanders and Wilson have worked together to combat what they see as injustice for victims, Voice of OC has reported. Their less than likely partnership has flummoxed the district attorney's office.

"We can't explain Mr. Wilson's behavior, or why he's become best friends with the attorney who defended his wife's killer," OCDA spokeswoman Kimberly Edds wrote in a statement Wednesday.

Though Spitzer is seen in a video, making comments on behalf of retiring prosecutors Scott Simmons and Dan Wagner, who failed to secure the death penalty for Dekraai, Edds agreed "The prosecutors in Orange County's worst mass murder committed prosecutorial misconduct and prevented the victims' families from having the killer sentenced to death. Mr. Wilson has every right to be upset about that."

The Orange County's District Attorney's Office feels Wilson's frustration "has morphed into an unrelenting scorched earth campaign against their office. She called their demands for Spitzer's resignation "completely unreasonable."

In the much-discussed video, taped in the middle of an investigation into the prosecutors Simmons and Wagner, Spitzer discussed the fallout of the "snitch scandal.

"I vowed that never again in the OCDA would any law enforcement agency fail to disclose information of evidence, and put that on the shoulders of prosecutors," he says. "That will never happen again."

Spitzer defended his attendance at the party as "work related." He told City News Service that "the independence of the report. The fact that I was there and didn't boycott it proves the point that the report was independent."

During the retirement party Spitzer said that Rackauckas' office did not do enough to defend the prosecutors. Later, in hindsight, he changed his mind. Spitzer says there is a "whole different picture" of the prosecution in that case following the independent report.

Patrick Dixon worked as special counsel in the report, along with Steve Danley, formerly performance auditor for Orange County, where they determined the failings of the Dekraai prosecution. The conclusion was that both Wagner and Simmons were "so fearful Dekraai would try a defense of insanity and avoid the death penalty that they improperly used a confidential informant to gain the incriminating comments."

According to Spitzer's office, an underlying agenda behind Wilson's rally is to help put Sanders in a position to run for Orange County District Attorney in 2022 or in the event that Spitzer would resign as Wilson suggests.

Patch has reached out to Sanders for comment on whether or not his plans include seeking office.

That partnership is "deeply troubling," according to Edds.

Wilson contends that this is not the case.

He told Voice of OC that "never once have I said I am campaigning for Scott Sanders to run for DA."

Still, in calling for Spitzer's resignation, he did not mention who he would want to replace him. (Patch has reached out to him in answer to this statement and will update when a response is given).

Edds discussed how hindsight allowed the DA's office to see further the misconduct engaged in by the Dekraai prosecution team.

"(They) subjected the victims' families to unnecessary trauma," Edds wrote. "It is a travesty that Mr. Wilson, who has suffered unimaginable loss at the hands of a criminal, is now campaigning on behalf of an assistant public defender who wants nothing more than to run for District Attorney so that he can throw the jail doors open and release criminals back into the streets without being held accountable."

She added, "It is deeply troubling that someone who has been victimized is now standing shoulder to shoulder with social justice reformers who want to defund the police and allow criminals to continue to commit crimes and victimize innocent people."

During the shooting spree Dekraai's ex-wife, 48-year-old Michelle Marie Fournier, was the first victim the 50-year-old gunman killed at the Salon Meritage at 500 Pacific Coast Highway, where she worked. The couple were locked in a bitter child custody dispute.

Also killed in the salon were the shop's owner, 62-year-old Randy Lee Fannin, Laura Webb Elody, 46, Christy Wilson, 47, Victoria Ann Buzzo, 54, Lucia Berniece Kondas, 65, and Michele Dashbach Fast, 47. After leaving the salon, Dekraai gunned down his last victim, 64-year-old David Caouette, as the victim sat in his Range Rover, parked next to the gunman's vehicle.

Hattie Stretz, now 82, survived the bloodbath.

City News Service contributed to this report.