Photo Courtesy of MSNBC

The Lemon Tree Inn
When they got back to Rugge’s house, Hollywood was there with his then girlfriend, Michele Lasher. Both Skidmore and another friend they had picked up after they got Nick wanted to leave. Hollywood let the two of them take the van and leave. That was the extent of their participation, but in the eyes of the law, they held responsibility and Skidmore would be charged in Nick’s abduction. The investigators in Calabasas where Michelle lived later expressed doubt that Jesse and Michelle had been at the house. But everyone agreed that it was another good night for a party. This night, Jesse decided that they should get a suite at the Lemon Tree Inn. Graham needed a ride and decided to call and ask his mother to pick up himself and Nick to go the party. When she arrived, Nick politely thanked her for giving them a ride, saying he was pleased to meet her. This would be the last adult Nick would see that he could have interacted with to escape. But he did nothing. There was a party to go to.

The hotel was typical for the kind of party Hollywood would host, with one exception: Jesse James was not there. Earlier in the day, he’d called Stephen Hogg, the lawyer who had represented him in his other brushes with the law. After Jesse explained the situation in hypothetical terms, Hogg was flabbergasted, telling Hollywood he had to go to the police. Of course Hollywood did not and went about making his own plans to deal with the situation. Back at the Lemon Tree Inn, Ryan Hoyt had shown up after cleaning Hollywood’s house, Rugge and Nick, Graham Pressley and depending on the report, between 9 and 42 people coming and going in and out of the suite they rented and the pool area which they had commandeered. Nick was comfortably stoned the entire time, drinking, smoking pot and popping Valium along with everybody else, and went swimming with the girls. Hollywood was establishing an alibi with his girlfriend, Michele Lasher. It was her 20th birthday and he took her to an Outback Steakhouse to celebrate.  He had already decided he wasn’t going to the party at the Lemon Tree Inn and if he was with Michele, if any trouble went down, he was totally protected.

It was getting late. Ryan Hoyt owed Hollywood money too. He’d been practically Jesse’s slave in everything from buying groceries to cleaning Hollywood’s house to work it off, and the other guys gave him a hard time about it. In fact, he wasn’t taken seriously most of the time because it was so well known that he was Hollywood’s personal punching bag.  Hollywood was offering Ryan a chance to erase his debt and be clear with Jesse. All he had to do was kill Nick and get rid of his body. Rugge clamed later he never knew that Hollywood meant to kill Nick. He claimed it wasn’t planned in front of him. But Hollywood did get Ryan to do his dirty work and make the problem with Nick Markowitz go away. Hollywood gave Ryan a TEC-DC9 that had been modified into a fully automatic weapon that could fire 12 rounds a second. They knew of a hiking trail that ended in a spot that locals called Lizard Mouth; they could take Nick up there. Graham and Ryan went up and Ryan says Graham dug a shallow grave willingly. Graham says he did it at gunpoint. It was time to head for the Lemon Tree.