Photo Courtesy of MSNBC |
The Death of the Unsuspecting
Ryan got lost twice and had to call Rugge for directions. By that time, Rugge and Graham had run off all the girls. Party’s over, the end. He told everyone including Nick that someone was coming from L.A. to take him home. Everyone left and it was down to just Nick, Rugge and Graham sitting there waiting for Ryan. When he finally showed up, they told Nick they were taking him for a ride. From what I understand, at that point, Nick had been drinking on top of the Valium and weed and was still unaware Ryan was going to kill him. The place they chose seemed like a barren desert when they’d chosen it, but in reality it was a popular hiking trail. Graham waited in the car while Rugge and Ryan walked Nick up the brushy trail to the hole Graham had dug. |
| As Nick was turning around, possibly to ask what they were doing to him, Ryan hit him in the back of the head with a shovel. When he went down and fell in the hole, Ryan raised the gun and shot him 9 times. The gun had jammed and stopped firing. Nick’s grave was covered with branches and dirt. Ryan said,” I didn’t know he’d go that quick,” Graham turned away from the shallow hole he’d dug and vomited. The hardest part, in their minds, was over. |
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They drove Graham back to the Lemon Tree Inn and told him to check out in the morning like nothing was wrong. That had to have been quite a performance for Graham after seeing and participating in Nick’s murder the night before. He called his mother shortly afterward to come pick him up and she has been quoted as saying that he was pale, shaking and clearly sick from something. Ryan went and met with Hollywood who gave Ryan $400. He went shopping at a local skateboard shop for new clothes and that night, most of their crew partied at the home of Casey Sheehan. Casey was not only on the Little League team of their youth, it was his father’s van the guys drove Nick to Lizard’s Mouth to kill Nick. Casey asked Ryan about what had happened, but Ryan being completely intoxicated, downplayed his confession and brushed it off, telling him not to worry. It was Ryan’s 21st birthday.
It didn’t take long for Nick’s body to be found. The trail to Lizard’s Mouth was a popular site and hiked often by the locals. On Saturday August 12th, a group of hikers saw the grave surrounded by flies and an unmistakable smell coming from it. When looking a little closer, it was obvious it was a body: there was a leg with jeans and blood on them. They called the police immediately, they didn’t look at the body further, and it was a good thing. The summer heat had sped up the decomposition process and Nick’s face was full of larvae. Dental records had to be used and it was two days before they could make a positive identification. It was definitely Nick Markowitz. Telling the Markowitz family was going to be extremely difficult, especially for Susan, considering how much she had invested in her child. That was Monday, August 14th and it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
On the front page of the Santa Barbara News Press was a picture of Nick Markowitz. Natasha Adams-Young, who had taken Nick to her house the day she met him had a secret: she’d told her mother, who was a criminal defense attorney what she thought was happening, that Jesse James had finally gone too far in his feud with Ben Markowitz and kidnapped his little brother. Her mother urged her to go to the police, seeing Nick in his white tuxedo, on the front page. That would be hell for any mother. |
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Natasha called Jesse Rugge. “Natasha,” he said to her seriously, “It’s not what you think.” But she didn’t believe him for a minute. She went to his house and when she got there he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She has been quoted as saying she could see his heart beating under the skin, that being how scared he was. She left to call her mother and make arrangements to tell the police what she knew for immunity. Without her participation and willingness to do the right thing, it is hard to say how much longer this could have taken, or have been worse. On the morning of August 16th, Jesse Rugge was greeted by the police. Then Graham, then Skidmore. They fell over themselves to implicate each other and minimized their own participation. Ryan Hoyt was the last to be brought in. He was in the process of putting a huge shiny coat of lies over the initial act of murdering Nick Markowitz. He called his mother from jail, who, completely unknowing of her son’s role in the crime, urged him to tell the police everything. She had no idea he was the triggerman; she had thought all along it was Hollywood. Finally Ryan admitted he shot Nick, but that was all he’d done. He was most emphatic on this point, as if that was a minor detail in the grand scheme of it all. |
| Jesse James Hollywood Home Page |
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