James Lee Crummel: Crimes, Victims, and San Quentin Suicide

James Lee Crummel was a convicted child molester and murderer whose record of sexual violence against boys stretched from the 1960s until his arrest for the 1979 killing of 13-year-old James “Jamie” Trotter of Costa Mesa, California. A Riverside County jury sentenced him to death in 2004 for that murder. He hanged himself in his cell on death row at San Quentin State Prison on May 27, 2012, at age 68, taking with him answers investigators had sought in other child disappearances, including that of a nine-year-old boy from Big Bear Lake.¹²

A Record Spanning Four States

Crummel’s sex offenses date to the early 1960s, when he was in the military, and he was eventually convicted of sex crimes in four states, including Missouri and Wisconsin.¹

On August 28, 1967, he abducted a 14-year-old boy who was hitchhiking in Milwaukee, drove him to isolated areas in Ozaukee County, sexually assaulted him, beat him unconscious, and pushed him down a hill. The boy survived with skull fractures and was found the next morning. Crummel was arrested three days later and pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual perversion and one count of aggravated battery. He was committed to Wisconsin’s Department of Health and Social Services for treatment as a “sex deviate” and given five years in prison on the battery count.³

That same year, nine-year-old Frank Clawson was found dead under a tree in Arizona. Crummel was convicted in that case, but the conviction was later overturned for ineffective counsel.⁴

The Murder of Jamie Trotter

In April 1979, Jamie Trotter vanished while walking to a bus stop in Costa Mesa to meet a friend. Crummel lived on the same street as the Trotter family. According to prosecutors, he abducted the boy, gave him alcohol, drove him to a wooded area in the Cleveland National Forest near Ortega Highway in Riverside County, sexually assaulted him, and killed him.¹⁵

The case went cold. No body was recovered for more than a decade. Then in 1990, Crummel himself contacted police, claiming he had come across a partial human skull and bones while hiking near Ortega Highway. Authorities took seven years to identify the remains as Jamie’s and to connect Crummel to the killing. He was charged with the murder in 1997.¹

The prosecution’s case was built largely on circumstantial evidence and a jailhouse informant.⁶ Prosecutors pointed to photographs recovered from Crummel’s home that placed him in the Cleveland National Forest near where the bones were found, along with his proximity to the Trotter family and his history of sexual violence against boys.⁵

His defense attorney, Mary Ann Galante, tried to blame the murder on executed serial killer William Bonin, known as the “Freeway Killer.” The defense relied on recorded statements from Bonin’s convicted accomplice James Munro, who claimed Bonin had confessed to killing Trotter and had called it “the easiest one he killed.” Ordered to testify, Munro recanted on the stand, calling his earlier account “a lie” and “payback to Bonin.” Prosecutors alleged the defense team had offered to represent Munro at his next parole hearing for free in exchange for his cooperation.⁷

On May 18, 2004, the jury convicted Crummel of first-degree murder with special circumstances. On June 7, 2004, it recommended death. Judge Dennis McConaghy formally imposed the death sentence on July 9, 2004.¹⁶ By then he was already serving 60 years to life for molesting a teenager in Orange County.⁵

Jamie’s mother, Barbara Brogli, said after the verdict that she planned to hold a long-postponed memorial service for her son and condemned Crummel for hiding the crime for nearly two decades and refusing to name other possible victims. His brother Jeffrey Trotter said he was satisfied Crummel would “be nowhere near anyone else’s child again.”¹

Other Convictions in California

While investigators were building the Trotter case, Crummel was convicted in San Bernardino County of molesting three boys in Big Bear City and began serving a 10-year sentence.⁸

In March 1999, an Orange County jury convicted him of two counts of molesting a 16-year-old boy who had been under the care of Crummel’s roommate, a former psychiatrist, at a Newport Beach condominium. Authorities said Crummel drugged and molested the teenager.⁸ He was sentenced to 60 years to life.⁹

Before that arrest, Crummel had been among the first people in Orange County whose address was publicized under California’s Megan’s Law. In 1997, Newport Beach police distributed fliers to residents of his condominium complex in the Newport Crest neighborhood. Neighbors picketed his home and demanded his eviction, and the protests continued until San Bernardino County authorities arrested him weeks later.¹⁰⁸

Cases That Were Never Charged

In 1995, nine-year-old Jack “J.D.” Phillips walked to Aspen Glen Park in Big Bear Lake after an argument at home and was never seen again. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detectives identified Crummel as a person of interest almost immediately; he was living in the area at the time. Retired detective Jack Trotter said there was “plenty of circumstantial evidence” but no physical evidence tying him to the disappearance. A former cellmate later claimed Crummel had confessed to killing the boy and described the assault. Investigators suspected the remains had been disposed of in the ocean but could never prove it.¹¹¹²

After his death sentence, Crummel offered to reveal the location of J.D.’s body in exchange for removal of the death penalty, but he never followed through. The case remains unsolved.¹¹

Crummel was also a suspect in the 1976 murder of 14-year-old John Zera, whose body was found in Whitnall Park in Wisconsin. His DNA did not match samples from the victim, and he was never charged.⁴ Police also questioned him about the 1981 killing of a boy in Anaheim Hills, with no charges resulting.¹³

During the Trotter penalty phase, prosecutors offered Crummel a plea bargain in exchange for the names or details of other possible victims. He refused. A prison psychologist described him as “one of the few people that we see who really fits the prototype of a coldblooded killer.”¹⁴

Suicide at San Quentin

Crummel was found hanging in his death row cell at San Quentin on May 27, 2012, and was pronounced dead at 4:20 p.m. local time. He had used an electrical cord.²¹² J.D. Phillips’ father, Jack, said he was glad Crummel was gone but that the only closure he had ever wanted “was to have his son back.”¹¹

1
Los Angeles Times. Jury Backs Death in Slaying of Teen
2
NBC News. Death Row Pedophile, Child Killer Found Hanging in San Quentin Prison
3
vLex. Crummel v. State, 46 Wis.2d 348
4
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Unsolved: A New Beginning
5
Press Democrat. Jury Backs Death in 1979 Killing of Teen
6
Press Enterprise. Riverside County Death Row Inmate Found Hanging in San Quentin Prison Cell
7
Los Angeles Times. Defense Seeks to Blame Freeway Killer in Trotter Case
8
Los Angeles Times. Crummel Convicted on Two Counts of Molesting Teen
9
Los Angeles Times. Crummel Sentenced to 60 Years to Life
10
Los Angeles Times. Convicted Sex Offender Subject of Community Notification
11
ABC7. Closure Eludes Family of Missing Big Bear Boy
12
San Bernardino Sun. Closure Eludes Parents of Missing Big Bear Lake Boy
13
OC Weekly. James Lee Crummel Hangs Himself on Death Row