Two Against One

Just as they were leaving to get the drugs, Guy showed up. Then, McMillan and McGloughlin left abruptly without an explanation. Noordman told police the two girls wondered what would have happened if they had left with the two men. This story, the basic facts of which police confirmed with Guy, added fuel to the existing flame of suspicion surrounding McMillan and McGloughlin. Oniveros told police on September 17 that she had been supplying Bullwinkle with cocaine and that McMillan bragged that he robbed Bullwinkle of $100 and later killed her.

Redlands police honed in on McGloughlin and McMillan, holding McGloughlin on unrelated auto-theft charges and searching their apartments and crash pads. Inside a safe house the two used, police found a bloodied white T-shirt and jeans. A portion of carpet with blood splatter was also taken as evidence. In both homes were scattered clippings of Bullwinkle’s disappearance and homicide.

They also searched Bullwinkle’s three-bedroom home and found two pocket knives, Camel cigarettes, five unknown blue pills, one scalpel blade, and bloodstains on a white tank top, the source of which has yet to be determined. Also found was a piece of paper with blood splatter and the words “Everything always fails, but this won’t,” “Set Them All Free Yesterday,” and “Not so Bad.”

It was looking bad for McMillan and McGloughlin, but the investigation took a dramatic turn when the Redlands Police, following up on a lead, brought in Noordman’s cousin Scott Simonson for questioning. His statements would change the course of the investigation. Sometime between last January and March, Simonson saw a small silver gun in the glove compartment of Guerrero’s black 2001 Honda Civic.

When police questioned Guerrero, he admitted to owning a .25-caliber Raven Arms Model P-25 pistol that he said he dumped months earlier in a storm drain near Center Street and Cypress Avenue. (After scouring the storm drain, police could not find the gun.) Guerrero’s older brother bought the gun for Guerrero a year earlier from a Yucaipa man for $70. “Since he already had a .357 [magnum] he thought that his brother might like the gun because his brother was into swords and different stuff like that,” according to police transcripts.

Guerrero told police that he didn’t like owning the gun and thought it best to get rid of it. “I thought it was neat, then it became a pain in my ass because I didn’t feel safe with it around. It was a worry for me,” he told police.

The Yucaipa man told police that he had used the gun for target practice at his mother’s house. The police then searched the back yard and found three shell casings that positively matched the shell casing found at the scene of Bullwinkle’s death.

There were signs that Guerrero was beginning to crack. On one occasion after a fight with Romero at her house, he broke down in front of her mother and started screaming, crying uncontrollably and hitting their garage door. Friends say he wasn’t taking Bullwinkle’s death well. However, he still was savvy enough to point his finger at the Yucaipa man who sold the gun to his brother. At the memorial, Guerrero told Bullwinkle’s close friend Amy Locust that a week before Bullwinkle was murdered his brother told him that the Yucaipa man told his brother he wanted to kill Bullwinkle. Thinking that she was being helpful, Locust would relay this conversation to the police.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Guerrero and Noordman was starting to fray because, according to Noordman, he was acting like he didn’t have time for her. Noordman blamed this on Elody Romero, who Noordman said, “hates my guts.” Noordman’s behavior after the murder was described as “best friends one day, bitchy the next,”according to Simonson.

POLICE DECIDED to go after Noordman first when they found out that Noordman was with Guerrero on the day Bullwinkle disappeared. Noordman confessed her part in the crime while being interrogated by Redlands police detectives. Then she was allowed to go home. The next day she confessed again to her boyfriend Peter Kovalsky. “We really fucked up,” she said to Kovalsky on the morning of November 5 at 9 a.m. “Damien and I shot Kelly. It was an accident.” Noordman told Kovalsky that the police had already arrested two other guys and “we figured that they would be busted for it.”

When the cops showed up at Guerrero’s house to tell him that Noordman had confessed, he replied, “I do not want to answer any questions, and I am going to get up and walk into the house and take a nap.”

The Redlands police arrested Noordman as she was driving southbound with her parents on Interstate 15 at the Jurupa Street offramp on November 5 at 12:34 p.m. When Noordman had confessed her part in the murder, her mother told her, “You need to be put away,” and was angry at the police for not arresting her daughter immediately.

Police say in retrospect that Noordman had cleverly manipulated details of the encounter with McMillan and McGloughlin to lead police toward them. McMillan told police that he was just making a joke about killing Bullwinkle. Guerrero was arrested at 1:45 p.m. while watching Matrix Revolutions at San Bernardino’s Cinema Star on E Street.