Slaying Suspect Captured in Reno
Aug. 17, 2001
JOHN WOOLFOLK
AND ALEXIS CHIU
Mercury News
FBI officials arrested Adam Ezerski about 8 p.m. following tips he was in the area, said Andrew Black, a spokesman for the agency's San Francisco bureau. He credited widespread reports about the case with leading to the arrest.
``It was due in large part to publicity that was generated,'' Black said.
Daron Borst, a special agent with the FBI's Nevada bureau, said authorities found Ezerski and the parolee in a room at a hotel, which he wouldn't identify. He would not say what led police to the pair but said the arrest was peaceful. ``He did not resist and he was unarmed,'' Borst said.
Authorities could only speculate why Ezerski headed for Reno, but Borst noted that a gay pride celebration is scheduled there this weekend.
The FBI would not release more details of the arrest. Borst said he expects Ezerski to be extradited to Florida as early as next week for prosecution.
Authorities fanned the Bay Area on Friday chasing hundreds of leads, many of which did not pan out. But they got a big break late in the afternoon.
About 4 p.m., a San Francisco resident found the rented red Ford Mustang that police believe Ezerski stole from one of the Florida slaying victims and drove to California. The car was abandoned at Filbert and Laguna streets, said San Francisco police Lt. Mary Stasko. Police have impounded the car and plan to search it.
``They're hoping it might have some evidence from the homicide in Florida,'' Stasko said.
Police had widened their search along the West Coast, looking to blanket gay communities where Ezerski might have been headed. Wanted posters with his picture circulated from Guerneville to San Jose.
The Ezerski case drew eerie parallels to Andrew Cunanan, who killed five men including fashion designer Gianni Versace in a 1997 cross-country spree before shooting himself to death on a Miami houseboat. Criticism over that case prompted the FBI to spread the word on Ezerski more quickly.
``I think we've had a faster response this time, getting the word out to gay communities,'' said Special Agent Paul Russell of the FBI's South Florida Fugitive Task Force, who also worked on the Cunanan case.
That effort has made Ezerski the buzz of Bay Area gay communities and kept phones ringing with tips. Among them was a report that Ezerski might have been seen Thursday night in San Jose with a 37-year-old drug dealer paroled in the area last month. Found with Ezerski on Friday, the parolee was identified as Troy Young. Investigators said Friday the two were driving a U-Haul rental truck in which they had been spotted earlier in the day.
Before his arrest, Ezerski's last confirmed whereabouts were in San Francisco early Tuesday, when he allegedly attacked a 42-year-old San Francisco man who had taken Ezerski into his Tenderloin-area apartment. A fingerprint matching Ezerski's was found on a videotape in the apartment, San Francisco police Inspector Dominic Celaya said.
A garage attendant near the victim's home told police a red Ford Mustang allegedly stolen from one of the Florida slaying victims was parked in the neighborhood for three days this week. A witness reported seeing Ezerski driving the car in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The San Francisco victim told police he met Ezerski last Saturday night at a cafe on Polk Street popular among gays. The young stranger introduced himself as Adam and said he was a professional masseur. The two spent the night together and went their separate ways Sunday, the man told police.
The pair met up again Monday, spent the day antiquing and rented several videos, Celaya said. The victim went to sleep while Ezerski watched movies, he said.
About 5 a.m. Tuesday, the man woke up disoriented and felt what he thought was sweat on his head, Celaya said. It turned out to be blood from being struck in the head. The two fought, the assailant fled and the Mustang was removed from the garage, Celaya said.
Ezerski, a troubled youth from Jacksonville, Fla., with a string of juvenile arrests, had been sentenced to probation June 24 for a car theft in Key West.
But FBI officials in Florida are seeking him in connection with the killings late last month of two gay men. Ezerski was featured last weekend on TV's ``America's Most Wanted.''
Police want to question Ezerski about the July 25 slaying of Irving Sicherer, 76, who was found bludgeoned to death in his Aventura, Fla., condominium. Ezerski also was being sought on a murder warrant in the killing of Anthony Martilotto, 40, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who turned up dead July 26 at an upscale Fort Lauderdale hotel. Ezerski and Martilotto had been seen driving Martilotto's rental car, a red 2001 Ford Mustang, the day before.
Police had been checking a handful of reported sightings from Florida to San Francisco, including one Aug. 4 at a Central Valley rest stop. The FBI focused efforts on gay communities, thinking the fugitive might have been seeking refuge or another victim.
``You have to recognize the group that's at highest risk and make sure they get the word,'' Black said. ``I think that's a good lesson from the Cunanan case.''
While the three victims were gay, it was unclear whether Ezerski is, too. Authorities believe he is, but his 18-year-old brother on Friday described him as ``homophobic'' and said he was engaged to a young woman.
San Francisco police distributed fliers throughout the city's Castro district this week. And in Sonoma County on Friday, deputies spread leaflets throughout downtown Guerneville's small business district to alert its sizable gay community about Ezerski, sheriff's Lt. Larry Doherty said. But residents weren't worried.
``You think a person wanted for murder is going to pull into this town in a red Mustang with Florida plates? I don't think so,'' said Ken Hopkins, owner of the clothing store Up the River. ``He's not going to do it in a town of 5,000.''
The Billy DeFrank Lesbian and Gay Community Center in San Jose sent warnings and updates on its e-mail network to 1,000 members, deputy director Ron Schoof said.
The case had particularly grabbed the attention of older gay men -- Ezerski's alleged targets -- and drew painful reminders of the Cunanan killings and other attacks on gays.
``There's talk at the bars,'' Schoof said. ``It opens up a lot of wounds, bringing up all the other hate crimes against our community.''
Local gays were worried that like the Cunanan case, this one would renew negative images of gays as promiscuous criminals. ``I think it just reinforces the stereotype,'' Schoof said.
He was also upset that police had not circulated fliers with Ezerski's photo throughout downtown San Jose and at area gay bars: ``We need police support.'' But he said local gays were glad the FBI was quicker to get the word out this time.
``It's a very scary situation,'' said 27-year-old David Brewer, who drank beers with friends on the garden patio at Foxtails, a gay bar on Julian Street near downtown San Jose. ``You make sure you know who you go home with.''
Mercury News staff writers Dan Reed and Connie Skipitares contributed to this report.
Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3410. Contact Alexis Chiu at achiu@sjmercury.com or (415) 477-3795.
Brother: Slaying Suspect Wore Out Family's Loyalty
Aug. 17, 2001
BY ALEXIS CHIU
Mercury News
He was arrested nine times as a juvenile, mostly on petty theft and check-cashing charges. He sold drugs and sometimes stole from his family. He was convicted in June of auto theft after police found him smoking pot in a stolen car.
Along the way, his family's loyalty has been pushed, they say, to the breaking point. ``He got himself into this, he can get himself out,'' said Aaron Smith, 18, Ezerski's brother, in a phone interview from his home in Atlantic Beach, Fla., near Jacksonville.
Smith was contacted just hours before Ezerski was arrested Friday in Reno after a nationwide manhunt sparked by the killings of two gay men in Florida and a brutal assault on another in San Francisco.
Smith, who had been following news accounts of his brother's alleged crime spree, said there is one suggestion about Ezerski he finds impossible to believe.
``He's not a homosexual,'' Smith said, adding that his brother was homophobic and engaged to his girlfriend of two years. ``He's always chasing girls.''
Though he said he couldn't imagine Ezerski killing anyone, Smith admitted his brother had a violent side that often showed itself in scuffles, including one with a gay acquaintance he threatened with a gun. He said his mother, Tina Smith, is putting up a strong front despite years of struggles with her eldest son.
``She tries to act like it doesn't bother her, but she's always going to feel a mother's guilt,'' he said. ``Everyone else in the family's pretty much cast him away.''
Still, neither relatives nor authorities could say what may have turned Ezerski from small-time thug to deadly predator.
``He's not a bad person. He just made some stupid mistakes in life,'' said Ezerski's sister, a 23-year-old Ohio woman who asked that her name not be used. ``I think he's just desperate and alone right now.''
She said Ezerski, whose father died in a Montana motorcycle crash when he was 6 months old, seemed happy as a child. Though he got along with his stepfather, he didn't adjust well when his mother divorced and moved to Florida in 1995.
``I think he was fine until he moved to Florida,'' his brother said, explaining that the temptations -- and pressures -- were a world away from those in Ohio.
Over the past few years, Ezerski has bounced around, moving in and out of his mother's home, living with his sister twice, enrolling in a job corps program in Indiana several years ago and attempting to join the Army. That request was denied when the government took a look at Ezerski's long juvenile record, said FBI Special Agent Paul Russell in Florida.
Now Ezerski is accused of crimes far more serious. Police in Florida have linked him to the slayings of two men who picked up their killer in gay nightspots. And fingerprints link him to an attack Tuesday on a San Francisco man, who survived.
Ezerski's sister says she wants to believe he has been wrongly accused.
``I'm scared for him,'' she said. ``He's my little brother. It hurts to think he could've done things like that.''
Contact Alexis Chiu at achiu@sjmercury.com or (415) 477-3795.
Suspect in gay killings captured in
Reno
Staff and wire
reports
August 18th, 2001
A teen-ager wanted by the FBI in the killings
of two gay men in Florida and the bludgeoning of a San Francisco man was
arrested in Reno on Friday, the same day the city’s gay pride celebration
started.
Adam Ezerski, 19, of Atlantic Beach, Fla., was captured in a
Reno hotel room at 8 p.m. by FBI agents and Reno police, said FBI Special Agent
Daron Borst. Borst wouldn’t name the hotel.
Ezerski was arrested on
suspicion of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, a federal charge, and two
counts of first-degree murder. Borst said Ezerski hadn’t been charged in
connection with the San Francisco incident.
Authorities also arrested
Ezerski’s traveling companion, who was wanted for a probation violation, Borst
said. The men were arrested without incident.
Borst said he didn’t know
if the men were in Reno because of the Gay Pride festival.
“I don’t know why
they were in town,” Borst said.
Ezerski is accused of strangling Anthony
Martilotto, 39, a dual resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Florida, at a Fort
Lauderdale hotel on July 26. The FBI also connects Ezerski to the death of
Irving Sicherer, 76, who was found bludgeoned to death a day earlier in
Aventura, Fla.
Ezerski also is suspected in the attack of a 43-year-old
San Francisco man Tuesday morning after befriending him and staying at his
apartment for two days. That report caused local and federal authorities to
patrol gay neighborhoods and warn residents that a killer could be among
them.
The San Francisco man, whom police would not identify, said he
awoke when Ezerski began striking him in the head with a plaster statue. After a
struggle, the man said, Ezerski tried to strangle him before fleeing, FBI
spokesman Andrew Black reported.
Police said they found Ezerki’s
fingerprint on a videotape inside the apartment.
Ezerski’s story aired on
the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” last weekend, and FBI officials received
tips of sightings in the San Francisco Bay area.
The FBI said Ezerski’s
baby-faced appearance and demeanor made it easy for him to befriend
others.
“He gains people’s trust and then victimizes them,” Black said. “He
appears quiet and unassuming and that’s why he’s so dangerous.”
Awareness
drove many to pay particular attention to anyone who looked like the picture of
Ezerski that was circulating through the city’s largely gay Castro district.
Area residents were also on the lookout for the Mustang, he apparently had been
driving.
The killings and search for Ezerski reminded many gay San
Franciscans of the 1997 pursuit of one-time city resident Andrew Cunanan, who
led police on a nationwide manhunt. He was sought in connection with the murders
of five gay men before turning up in Miami Beach, where he killed fashion
designer Gianni Versace and then committed suicide.
“It’s got so much of
that Cunanan connection,” said Chris Zarbetski, sitting outside a Castro cafe.
“There’s a sleaziness attached to it.”
© 2001 Reno Gazette-Journal
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