Gerrard Kaonga
Police have outlined how they went from no information to convicting the three men responsible for an insane kidnapping plot.
Michael was the owner of a successful marijuana dispenser business in California but saw his life turned upside down after being kidnapped.
The then 28-year-old was at his home with housemate, Mary Barnes, when the property was broken into back in 2012. The pair were grabbed, blindfolded and gagged and eventually driven into the Mojave Desert.
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The kidnappers believed Michael had hidden $1 million dollars in the desert and tortured him severely, hoping he would reveal its location. He repeatedly insisted he did not have that kind of money.
Michael was beaten and tortured with a blowtorch and a taser during the two-and-a-half hour journey to the desert. As well as this they zip-tied the base of his penis before severing it and dousing him in bleach, during which they allegedly laughed.
Eventually Mary found a knife, cut herself free and flagged down a vehicle which just happened to be a deputy officer with the Kern County Sheriff's Department. This heinous act is now being revisited in ABC News Studios' true-crime TV series, Wicked Game: The Devil in the Desert.
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Ryan Peters, a now retired Newport Beach Police Department detective, and Matt Murphy, then a homicide prosecutor with the district attorney's office, worked on the case and took steps to find the perpetrators.
Murphy has spoken out about the difficulties in finding the culprits.
He told ABC News: “At the very beginning of the investigation, we basically had nothing.
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“We have this absolutely horrific crime, and they interview Michael, who's like, 'Guys, I pay my bills. I have no enemies. I'm nice to people. I've never slept with anybody's wife.' My detectives are looking for any possible angle, like, who did this?"
The police got their first significant lead after speaking to Michael’s neighbor who gave them crucial information.
The neighbor said that the day before the crime, while sat at her desk, she saw a white truck pull up near her home in an alley way. She noted that the truck appeared to have a dent in it.
She added that she saw three men, who looked like construction workers pull up, and place a ladder against Michael’s house. However, this disguise didn’t seem to convince the neighbor who decided to write down the license plate number.
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The license plate number was traced back to a local individual, Kyle Shirakawa Handley, who ran a medical marijuana business.
Police stopped Handley for a vehicle violation and was eventually interviewed by Peters but refused to speak to him without a lawyer present.
Peters then obtained a search warrant for Handley's house, his person, and cars.
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As police were able to search his home, they found more evidence Handley was involved as well as clues towards the other perpetrators.
Peters said: “We slowly, methodically, kind of start going through these things. And what we're finding is that they're white towels with bleach all over them. We test these towels for blood and they're coming back positive."
Through DNA testing of other items inside the van, police found out a man named Hossein Nayeri was also connected and later learned he was the mastermind behind the scheme. They also found that another man, Ryan Kevorkian, was also part of the scheme.
Both Nayeri and Handley were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole while Kevorkian was sentenced to 12 years.