Thirty-five years ago, Kim Richards' fiancé was shot in front of a lunch crowd, and prosecutors called it a paid hit. On this episode of The Salty Chip Podcast, Mackenzie and Isaac go deep on the 1991 murder of John Collett. In October 1991, Kim was 27 and engaged to Collett, a 29-year-old securities broker from Agoura Hills. He was a former stereo salesman who had been sober for eight years, he drove a Porsche, and according to his mom, he told Kim he'd been in love with her since he was 10 years old. His sister said it was "like a fairy tale."
We break down the Parker Bryant investment scandal that was swirling around him at the time. The California Department of Corporations filed a civil suit naming six defendants, Collett among them, alleging that up to 8,000 investors lost about $140 million in partnerships sold by the LA firm. An attorney for about 1,200 investors called Collett the scheme's "star salesman." These were allegations only. Collett's own lawyer called him "simply a salesman," he was never criminally charged, and he died before the civil case was resolved.
Then the murder itself. Around 1:30 PM on October 28, 1991, outside Brent's Deli in Northridge, a gunman talked with Collett for several minutes, put him in a headlock, and shot him in the back of the head. He didn't take Collett's cash or phone. A witness wrote down the getaway car's plate, and police traced it to Marva DeCarlo Johnson, a Pasadena computer technician with no criminal record. A business associate testified that hours after the shooting, Johnson said he'd been paid $30,000 "for a job." Johnson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1993 and was sentenced to 30 years to life. The prosecutor wrote in court papers, "The killing was a paid hit," but refused to speculate on who hired Johnson because no evidence about a mastermind was ever presented.
We also cover Johnson's changing stories at his parole hearings, including his self-defense claims, which the parole board rejected when it denied him parole in 2015. We get into what's still unknown: who paid for the hit, who drove the getaway car, and whether the murder had anything to do with the fraud case. Police found no link in 1991, and prosecutors reportedly denied a connection. We walk through the theories that have circulated, and we're clear that they are only theories. Nobody has ever been publicly named or charged with ordering the killing. We close with Kim's side, including her emotional words on Dr. Phil in 2015: "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him." We're wishing Kim and John's family peace.
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