Page 107 - No Expression News Today

The plan had been as simple as it was ugly. nick harvey, in exchange for just $5,000, was to kill a long beach housewife named lynn schockner, stage it like a burglary and get away clean. instead, nick was in jail facing murder charges and detectives were prying apart a conspiracy. nick had already told them hed been hired by a man named frank jaramillo, who went by "el cubano." >> he wanted the job done, wanted the burglary staged. >> reporter: nick met el cubano at an el torito restaurant, he ...

Crying. i hugged my family.

After days of repeated calls and interviews with fred schockner, detectives had elicited some tantalizing details, but not enough evidence to arrest him for lynns murder. so they decided to focus on suspected middleman, frank jaramillo, el cubano. undercover cop kris nelson had a plan to set a trap to make frank believe he was about to be fingered by the hit man, nick harvey. so hed phone frank, and portray himself as -- >> a relative of nicks with a past of my own, not particularly liking cops,...

With us, that we didnt do our job to protect someones life. because thats ultimately what were supposed to do. >> reporter: lynns husband, fred, even threatened to sue the long beach pd for not protecting his wife. and so detective birdsall knew hed take even more heat when the news leaked out that police had arrested an alleged accomplice of the suspected killer and then, just as quickly, released him. but thats exactly what birdsall did, release the man who admitted hed driven the killer to th...

Let something slip. >> im scared, fred. i dont know, i understand youre scared, too. you have to understand. we would not be in this position if it wasnt for her. if it wasnt for lynn, we would not be here. >> thats true. and if it hadnt been sloppy on nicks part, we wouldnt be here either. >> reporter: fred referring to nick harvey, the hired killer. for the first time connecting himself to lynns murder. but frank kept going after him, as if he knew they needed more. >> we wouldnt [ bleep ] be ...

Because its only going to, you know, benefit you to tell the truth. this is getting uglier and uglier. >> we went at him one last time. tell us your story. he reiterates almost exactly what he said before. >> reporter: which was that he killed lynn schockner because the burglary he tried to carry out went bad. the cops still didnt buy it. >> him and i been doing this a long time, nick. you need to take nick and your responsibility now. take care of nick now, please. be truthful with us because w...

>> but will frank walk into it? >> i really dont have money to help him out. >> when "dateline" continues. s? with the sleep number 360 smart bed, you can both s? adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. and snoring? no problem ...and done. so, ill wake up ready for anything? oh, weve got your back. so, you can really promise better sl...

Were discovering. afraid that fred would find out and stop talking to them. so charlie stayed at home with his father. his uncle mark was allowed, even encouraged, to believe that fred was not involved, even as the detectives were getting the real story from the hit man, nick harvey. >> do you know who talked to cubano regarding this? >> yeah. >> who? >> her husband. >> so doesnt that mean you can know go out and arrest jaramillo and fred schockner, charge them all with murder right then? >> i w...

Hed just recently married a wonderful woman, a school teacher, who had no idea what her husband had done or what he was facing. >> theres nothing thats going to happen if we both maintain our cool. >> reporter: but it was too late for that. frank did not go home to his wife that evening. he submitted to a pair of handcuffs and was carted off to jail. and fred, well, fred did go home under the watchful eye of the undercover cops, who also conducted a thorough search of the restaurant for those no...

Standard daytime burglary gone horribly bad, of course, when lynn encountered the robber. but one thing stood out like -- well, like a bloody knife. >> i worked burglary division for four years. but ive never had one come with a device thats used simply for killing. >> reporter: so time to focus on that so-called burglar caught with a bloody knife in his pocket. his name was nicholas harvey. he was 22 years old. and this was unusual. >> he didnt have a criminal background. hed never been in trou...