http://www.mydesert.com/article/2010062 ... to-give-upVictim's daughter says she's come too far to give up
Begley says she'll appeal decision to drop charges
MONICA TORLINE • THE DESERT SUN • JUNE 27, 2010 
Rachel Begley, daughter of Ralph Boger,
one of the victims of the “Octopus Murders,”
talks about charges being dropped against the only
person to be arrested in connection with the crime.
(Richard Lui, The Desert Sun)Rachel Begley was seething.
The state prosecutor in her father's 1981 “Octopus Murder” case just phoned her to say he intended to drop all charges against the suspect they had held for the past nine months.
Begley is more than just a daughter who's spent the past 29 years without a father. She has been a dogged investigator and is credited by authorities with bringing forth new evidence in the triple-homicide case.
Facing the possibility that the man she believes killed her father could walk out of an Indio courtroom as a free man this week, she wasn't content to sit at home in the Midwest.
Begley booked a flight to California and was in the desert Friday, less than 24 hours after receiving the shocking phone call from Deputy Attorney General Michael Murphy.
She's here to confront prosecutors and convince them to not abandon the case — even if it means adding pressure by going public about some of the evidence she and detectives unearthed in their investigation.
“The evidence we have is so overwhelming that I think a jury would look at it and come back really quickly with a guilty verdict,” she said in a sit-down interview at The Desert Sun on Friday.
Officials with the California Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the case when contacted Friday.
But Begley had plenty to say.
She told The Desert Sun that investigators found witnesses who place James “Jimmy” Hughes at the scene of the homicides, police interviews in which Hughes incriminates himself and newspaper articles in which Hughes admits to committing murder.
“It's almost like he laid out a confession on this,” Begley said.
“I'm not going to stop,” she said. “I will contact anybody I have to. I'll go as high as I have to.”
Ask questions about the Octopus Murders and you will find that those closest to the case and its players are either deceased, scared to talk or unwilling to revisit those memories.
The dingy house on Bob Hope Drive, where the bodies of Fred Alvarez, Patricia Castro and Ralph Boger were discovered the morning of July 1, 1981, is long gone.
About the only thing that remains are yellowed articles and conspiracy theories that run rampant on Internet blogs.
But the story and surrounding intrigue has captured the attention of the Coachella Valley and the nation for nearly 29 years.
National magazines such as Spy and Vanity Fair examined the case, which became known as the “Octopus Murders” because of the tribe's complex connections to government agencies and the lengthy list of people rumored to be involved.
What is known, from digging through archives and poring over old records, is that Fred Alvarez knew he was in danger the summer of 1981.
“My life is on the line,” he told a reporter from the defunct Indio Daily News days before someone fired a bullet through his head. “There were people out there who want to kill me.”
Alvarez, a former vice chairman for the Cabazon tribe, and two other members were preparing to drive to San Juan Capistrano, meet with a lawyer and request an investigation into tribal affairs because they weren't getting their share of casino profits.
But Alvarez never had his chance to launch an investigation.
His body was slumped in a makeshift wooden chair. Castro was lying on her back across a daybed. Boger was face down in the sand, his body having fallen out of a chair.
The remains were so badly decomposed that the coroner couldn't determine how far away the killer or killers stood. Toxicology reports couldn't be performed.
Since then, the killer or killers have eluded authorities. The case went cold.
Begley, who was 13 at the time of her father's killing, decided to find out more on her own.
She scoured the Internet for hints in the cold case, tracked down a dozen new informants and recorded conversations with them. She posted just about everything on a website and invited other people to follow along.
John Powers, a detective with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, said Begley had managed to find documents and people tied to the case that no one else ever uncovered.
“Rachel (Begley) uncovered a lot more that we didn't know about,” Powers told The Desert Sun in October. “She's very tenacious.”
Going PublicUntil now, the 42-year-old Begley has stayed tight-lipped about what she found.
She didn't want to jeopardize the case against James “Jimmy” Hughes, the only suspect to be arrested in the homicides.
Hughes, a security chief for the tribe before he became an evangelical missionary in Honduras, is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of murder.
Charges, however, will be dropped at a felony settlement conference scheduled for Thursday, Begley said she was told last week.
Soon after, she posted on her Facebook page that she believes she has “a moral obligation to go public with evidence at this time.”
The felony complaint filed against Hughes in September states that on June 27, 1981, he conspired with others to commit a murder and prevent Alvarez from “exposing illegal activities of John Philip Nichols, occurring at the Cabazon Indian Reservation.”
Nichols was a former administrator for the Cabazon tribe who helped establish a revenue stream for members through bingo halls and gaming.
He once pleaded guilty to two counts of murder solicitation in a different case. And even though he died in 2001 at the age of 76, he is named a co-conspirator in the 1981 triple-homicide in the complaint against Hughes.
Also considered co-conspirators are his son John Paul Nichols, Palm Springs resident Glenn Heggstad and “other persons whose identities are unknown.”
No one else has been charged in the case, though the lead detective has said his investigation is ongoing.
“We're still trying to figure out if there's enough to charge (Nichols and Heggstad) with any crime,” Powers, the lead investigator, told The Desert Sun in October.
Begley isn't sure if others will be charged, especially if the case against Hughes is dropped.
Not Letting GoThe California Attorney General's Office is handling prosecution in the Hughes case because he is a distant relative of Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco.
Deputy Attorney General Michael Murphy told Begley on Thursday that he didn't think there was enough evidence to pursue the case against Hughes.
Murphy could not be reached to comment on why evidence strong enough to file a felony complaint against Hughes in September will not work in court.
Officials with the state office said they could not confirm that the case will be dropped, saying only that their position would be made clear in court Thursday.
Begley doesn't plan to wait.
She intends to appeal the decision to state Attorney General Jerry Brown.
“My hope is that Jerry Brown will come to his senses, look at the evidence and say, ‘We've really got a strong case here,'” she said.
“There's no good reason to let go of this case.”
Monica Torline is a reporter for The Desert Sun. She can be reached at monica.torline@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4620.
James Hughes (left) is seen at his arraignment
at Riverside County Superior Court in Indio on Dec. 15.
Officials with the state office said they could not confirm
that the case against Hughes will be dropped, but
Deputy Attorney General Michael Murphy told Rachel Begley
on Thursday that he didn’t think there was enough evidence to
pursue the case against Hughes.
(Richard Lui, Desert Sun file photo)
