Bill Pavelic - Famous Investigator

“...When Shapiro called, Zvonko "Bill" Pavelic was in his basement office at home in Glendale, cut off from everything. Bill Pavelic finished his investigations that way. He isolated himself with his computer and his tapes from mid-morning till midnight or later. Bill Pavelic allowed himself only one break, for dinner with Maria and the kids. He was proud of his tight, loyal family.  That was one reason he worked at home in the big house that Maria kept so well...”

“...Robert Shapiro called just before eleven P.M. They'd worked together three years. Pavelic liked the lawyer's style-intellectual, highly organized, well prepared. Shapiro's particular genius, he thought, was laying a foundation so solid that the case was a winner no matter who presented it. They had won every case they'd worked on...”

“...Would Bill Pavelic like to join the defense team in the Simpson case? Shapiro asked. "Are you available?" Naturally Pavelic said yes. Bill Pavelic apologized because he couldn't make Shapiro’s first meeting the next day. But he shifted into gear mentally while he was still talking. He'd need Maria to clip newspapers. He knew he had to identify the documents already being generated in the case. The prosecution's discovery file would undoubtedly be voluminous..."

“...Bill Pavelic met Robert Shapiro at his office in Century City. Elegantly appointed with original art, Baccarat and Lalique crystal. Polished and expensive, like its occupant. Then they moved to a conference room. Their forty-five-minute meeting ranged over the entire case.  Nothing would be easy, Shapiro said. An arrest might be coming soon. He needed the investigator to do what he did best, run parallel with the police detectives and figure out how they saw things; then, as soon as possible, move their own investigation ahead of them. As always, the first days were the most important...”

“...His one experience with O.J. Simpson was part of his police history. When Simpson was one of the runners carrying the Olympic torch before the 1984 games in Los Angeles.  Pavelic was assigned to protect VIPs. He and Simpson had talked briefly in the special seating section. Around that time, the International Olympic Committee's Life President, Lord Killenin, nearly died choking on his food. Pavelic had saved his life and he thought Simpson might remember the incident...”

“... Bill Pavelic put his background to work as a private investigator and learned to make his computer think like a cop. That was why he was so concerned with early discovery material. If you took the documents, the crime reports, the logs, the affidavits and connected them to each piece of evidence, then considered how each cop might view it, then you could make a pretty good guess where the department was going with the case. You could see who'd like one thing, who favored another. Sometimes you could see their destination and arrive there ahead of them...”

“...As an ex-cop, he drew on his knowledge of what the police do at a crime scene. They don't always go by the book. They cut corners-some officers more than others-but their reports make them sound like Boy Scouts.  Pavelic knew how to read between the lines of police verbiage and find the hidden stories in the photographs the D.A. had turned over...”

“..Bill Pavelic knew that Robbery-Homicide, the elite corps of detectives from LAPD, would be assigned the case when it became known that Simpson's ex-wife was involved...”

Read more about bill pavelic at his official website at www.billpavelic.com

“...Bill Pavelic was especially proud of his street sense. He had been one of the few (LAPD) Caucasian cops; he liked to tell friends, who understood how things really worked in the black community. He got so deep into it that he saw things, he was certain, through nonwhite eyes. He discovered that African-Americans and dark-skinned immigrants of all backgrounds had a lot to fear from the LAPD.  When the department couldn't prove something, some cops had no problem framing people who couldn't fight back. Bill Pavelic complained loudly, and soon enough he was seen as disloyal. Before long, he was out...”

"...I know (LAPD) Robbery-Homicide Division. I've actually seen them frame innocent people.  You can't take anything for granted..."

“...Bill Pavelic studied the LAPD's crime-scene logs. He called friends at LAPD to see what else he could learn. He put in twenty-hour days, and finally what happened in the early hours of June 13 started to come together...”

“...Bill Pavelic got a call from an officer on another matter. As they spoke, he realized that the cop was connected to the Simpson investigation. He said the department thought there was more than one killer. The wounds suggested each victim was murdered with a different weapon. Goldman's injuries indicated he had fought fiercely before he died...”

“...Bill Pavelic felt that there was no private investigator in town better at living inside the collective mind of the LAPD than himself. He was an expert on the department's rules and procedures. He'd been on the force for eighteen years, won hundreds of medals, commendations, favorable incident reports...”

“...It was Bill Pavelic who gave them their first real hope, however elusive: He saw corruption in the police casework...”

“...Under any circumstances, Bill Pavelic would have looked for it. His career with the LAPD had ended in angry protest.  In 1984, Bill Pavelic had testified against fellow officers who killed a fleeing suspect. One cop was fired, another suspended for six months.  Bill Pavelic assumed he was stigmatized forever. But by 1990, he'd made it to supervising detective in the Southwest Division. Then he got in trouble again.

His men were investigating a date rape at USC when their bosses began showing a heavy-handed interest.  Bill Pavelic, his partner, and their immediate supervisor eventually concluded that then-chief Daryl Gates and a deputy chief were listening to the suspect's father, a prominent lawyer with influence inside the department.

Bill Pavelic and his men protested publicly. And Bill raised similar charges again before a "people's tribunal" when activist groups held hearings on the LAPD after the Rodney King beating.  Bill Pavelic told the crowd that lying and covering up were the norm in the department.  That earned him a desk job. In 1992, he and the brass reached an accommodation.  He took a disability pension for asthma and chest pains. He told one doctor he'd rather spend time in a gulag than go back to work...”

Read more about Bill Pavelic at his official website www.billpavelic.com