AN UNSOLVED MURDER IN MADERA: Part 7

MADERA - After the death of Glenn Reitz, Madera Police Captain Andrew Moore went through all of the murdered teacher’s papers and personal effects. In this search, the secret life of the victim was revealed. A private side that, even today, some of his family members question and doubt. However, after what Captain Moore uncovered, there is no question that Reitz kept a dangerous secret. One that could potentially put his life at risk every time he brought some stranger back to his house for company.

Upon finding receipts for video rentals, Captain Moore drove to a Fresno adult video store that specialized in "gay porn" called the “Video Box.” The store was part of a larger complex with two gay bars, The Express and The Backroom. Moore showed employees a photo of the victim, who recognized Reitz as a customer in both the video store and bars.

Rory George, an employee of the Video Box, described Reitz as quiet and a loner when he spent time at either of the bars. George advised Moore to check these adjoining bars and the Red Lantern Bar on the 4600 block of East Belmont Street for others who might remember the victim. He then gave the police captain the hours the bars would be open.

In the Backroom, one patron recognized the photo and said he believed Reitz hung out with a man named ‘Scott’ who worked at Valley Medical Center, and another subject he only knew as 'Marcus'. In The Express, Moore interviewed bartender Scott Emerick (a different Scott), who said he recognized the victim as a regular patron who frequented the bar at least once a week during the summer.

Moore and Detective Dale Padgett went to Valley Medical Center to learn more about this “Scott,” who was said to have hung out with Reitz. They learned the subject's last name and that he was a phone operator for the hospital. They also learned that the Tuesday Reitz’s body was discovered, Scott Booth did not show up for work and did not give a reason for his absence.

When Captain Moore contacted Booth, he stated that he got off work the Monday of the murder at 8:00 pm. After work, he went to The Express with his roommate and another friend. When they left The Express, Booth spent the rest of the night with his roommate. The reason he gave for not showing up for work the next day was that he was looking for an apartment.

The subject denied knowing Reitz and told officers that whoever gave them that information was wrong. However, five days after being interviewed by Captain Moore, Booth contacted Madera Police about a Madera phone number he found on his monthly bill. He thinks a former roommate of his might have placed the calls. The phone number was that of Glenn Reitz.

While the two police officers were still in Fresno, they were instructed by radio to contact Madera Police Detective David Foster about another Fresno lead. When they contacted Foster, he told them that Mrs. Barbara Fraser might have information regarding a subject named Lawrence Markos.

Captain Moore contacted Mrs. Frazer at her place of employment, The Seaport. She told Moore that she and Markos were talking about the homicide and that the subject knew the victim was gay, which had not been published in the newspapers or television reports at that time. She said Markos appeared to be upset by the murder.

Markos had told Fraser, wife of former Madera Police Officer and now current Madera City Code Enforcement Officer Tom Fraser, that the suspect, in this case, would claim Reitz picked him up, made a pass at him, and furnished him with drugs. At that time, he became upset and killed the victim with a machete. Fraser gave the officers an address for Markos.

When the officers contacted Markos at his home, the subject claimed he had never met Reitz. Markos offered his opinion that from the photo, he could tell that the victim would be passive instead of aggressive. Markos said that he did not frequent adult bookstores because he knew these places were "known hangouts and pickup places for homosexuals".

Two days after the murder, Captain Moore contacted Glenn Webb, the Red Lantern Bar bartender. He told police that he had worked at the bar the Sunday before the homicide, and he recalled Reitz coming into the bar. He said Reitz sat down at a Frogger video game twenty minutes after a Mexican American male joined him. He stated the subject had three teardrops and a star tattooed next to his right eye.

Webb advised that he had left the bar for a while to supervise a drawing held at the Palace, a gay bar frequented by women. When he returned, Reitz was leaving with the tattooed man he called "Joe". The bartender said he had not seen the man in the bar before Sunday night and would let Madera Police know if he returned. There were no further entries in the report on this man.

A patron of The Express suggested police look at the Baths located on North E Street. The suspect with the tattoos might be named "Lapoca" and may have worked there. Moore and Padgett contacted the manager at the Steam Works. Reitz was known to frequent bathhouses in San Francisco when he was in the area.

The manager, who the report did not identify, was shown a photo of the victim but had never seen him before. He was then asked about "Lapoca," the manager said the man no longer worked there, but he did have a last name and phone number for police. No further information was provided in the report on "Lapoca."

Early in the investigation, it was learned that Reitz had been seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Lance Boyce between 1975 and 1978. Dr. Boyce stated that Reitz had confided in him that he was a homosexual and that he had a difficult time coping with what the teacher called “his problem.”

Dr. Boyce told the officers that Reitz had described his habit of picking up subjects at adult bookstores or hitchhikers along the freeway and bringing them back to his home. When Reitz first began seeing the doctor, the teacher was very uneasy about being labeled as homosexual. However, over time, he accepted this side of himself and grappled with how to manage his private life. Dr. Boyce said Reitz was very discreet about “his problem,” and the doctor believed that those people closest to him might not even know that he was gay.

Dr. Boyce said that to his knowledge, Reitz had never behaved inappropriately toward any underage males from school, his Boy Scout Troop, or from his drum & bugle corps. However, according to the doctor, Reitz did tend to seek out the company of men who were not his equals. Specifically, he enjoyed the company of men slightly younger than him.

According to Reitz's confessions to his psychiatrist, he would find himself driving around looking for men to pick up. On one such occasion in Merced County, he picked up the wrong man and had to explain his actions to law enforcement. Madera Police received a call from law enforcement in Merced County after the murder, indicating that police had detained Reitz following that incident.

While this was not listed in the police report. One line in the report notes mentioned a Lieutenant with the Merced County Sheriff's Department. Upon further investigation, it was learned that Reitz had been detained, but not arrested, for solicitation in Merced. Had this information come out before the murder victim's death, it may have resulted in the end of his career as a teacher in Madera, and yet it may have also saved his life.

While Reitz's activities in gay bars and with hitchhikers indicated the difficulty that homosexual men often encountered when seeking out real companionship, the police report does indicate that Reitz did occasionally attempt to seek out committed relationships. Police spoke to one such person, a cheerleader from Fresno State.

Kent Byers, who was from Oakhurst, told police he met Reitz at a Fresno State football game. While the subject said that he and Reitz had never been intimate, nor had he ever been to his house in Madera, they had talked on the phone several times and met for lunch. He described Reitz as a loner and said the teacher was waiting for the "right" person to come into his life, and according to Byers, Reitz thought the young cheerleader was that person.

The young man told Detective Foster he was not ready for a relationship then and turned down the teacher's advances. Byers said that he considered himself "bi-sexual," as he also dated women. He said he was unsure why Reitz continued to pursue him, called him repeatedly, and said Reitz had given him gifts, including a package of Jockey brand underwear, which he thought was very strange.

Foster was interested in a phone call Reitz had made to the Fresno State Sigma Chi Fraternity, where Byers was a member and lived, on the night he was killed. The cheerleader explained that the call was made to the frat house on the fraternities 'meeting' night, which meant most of the members would have been in the building, and Byers had no idea who Reitz may have spoken to. The cheerleader said he had not talked to Reitz that night but had spoken with him on Sunday evening.

Byers told police that the person in the composite drawing looked very familiar but that he "could not put a name with it." He gave police a list of other brothers in the Sigma Chi house that he knew were also gay. A copy of the 1985 Sigma Chi phone directory was included in the police report. The subject was photographed and fingerprinted. No further mention is made of this relationship in the file.

After reading through these notes on Mr. Reitz's private life, it's easy to imagine how often he needed to resort to social situations that could only be considered risky, if not outright dangerous.  The life of a closeted gay man in the middle 80s had to be secretive, especially for a man who was trying to build a career as a teacher.  He never had the luxury of meeting and pursuing someone who interested him during his normal activities in the routine places where he spent his days. His only options were to seek out places where most of the people present were also being unusually secretive about themselves.

I realize some might be tempted to blame Mr. Reitz for his murder by saying he invited a murderer into his home. But I invite those individuals to imagine how different their dating and relationships would have been if they had felt the need to hide them. If you could not openly meet an acquaintance for dinner in a restaurant or throw your arm around their shoulder in a movie theater, wouldn't you also spend time alone too early?  Time alone with someone you didn't know well enough to trust.

Next week's installment will cover the current status of the murder case, as well as Glenn Reitz's continuing influence on our community through the lives of the students he mentored while working with Boy Scouts, Drum and Bugle Corps, and those he taught during his thirteen years as a Thomas Jefferson Junior High School teacher.