Larry Montgomery

Larry Montgomery was a lead investigator in Janelle Cruz’s murder and a colleague in the broader effort to investigate a series of killings. His work joined two different kinds of inquiry: tracing the recent relationships and contacts surrounding a victim, and looking backward for possible signs of the killer’s earlier life. Neither inquiry offered an easy resolution; one sifted through a crowded field of personal connections, while the other returned names that ultimately checked out.

Investigating Janelle Cruz’s Murder

Montgomery and his colleagues scrutinized Janelle’s activities in the days before her murder, identifying several young men who had been in her life. The list was not a set of established suspects so much as a map of recent contacts, relationships, and possible investigative leads. Each connection had its own circumstances and needed to be examined rather than treated as proof.

Randy Gill, whom Janelle had met at YMCA camp, had been in a relationship with her and reportedly had a drinking problem. She had ended the relationship two weeks before her murder, and he phoned her on the night she was killed. The timing and the breakup made him a relevant lead for investigators, but the account does not say that either fact established his involvement.

Martin Gomez had met Janelle at a previous workplace. Their relationship ended after he became obsessive and controlling. Philip Michaels, a lifeguard, had only recently begun dating her; he spent the day with her before the murder and initially denied that they had a relationship. The contrasting histories—an ended relationship, a controlling former partner, and a new connection accompanied by an initial denial—show the range of personal circumstances Montgomery’s team had to sort through without equating proximity to guilt.

Testing and Eliminating a Lead

The investigation also included forensic testing. In early July, laboratory results from Mike Martinez’s blood sample reached Montgomery, and Martinez was eliminated as a suspect. The result closed off one line of inquiry: a sample had been collected and tested, but it did not support continuing to treat Martinez as a suspect.

That elimination sits alongside the examination of Janelle’s personal contacts as part of the same investigative problem. The existence of a recent connection, a call on the night of the murder, or a troubled relationship could bring a person into scrutiny; none, by itself, settled the question. Montgomery’s role in this phase was to pursue those leads and distinguish what investigators could substantiate from what merely warranted attention.

Looking for the Killer’s Earlier History

In a separate inquiry, some investigators in Orange County, California privately suspected that the killer might have come from Goleta, where the murders had begun. Montgomery followed that possibility by driving to Goleta and spending several days speaking with elementary-school teachers, both active and retired, from the area around San Jose Creek. He asked whether they remembered troubled boys they had taught in the mid-1960s, including children whose behavior had raised concerns about abuse of animals.

The inquiry looked well beyond the immediate crime scenes, searching for a possible earlier history that local recollection might preserve. Montgomery returned with several names, but they were checked and the individuals had grown up without the feared trajectory. The result was not a breakthrough: the leads did not identify the killer. It nevertheless shows the breadth of the search, from a murder victim’s recent relationships to memories of boys taught years earlier in a community where the killings had started.

Investigative Significance

Montgomery’s documented work is defined by pursuit and verification rather than a dramatic identification. In the Cruz investigation, his team mapped a series of personal connections and tested a blood sample that cleared Martinez. In Goleta, Montgomery followed investigators’ geographic suspicion into a local search of school memories, only to find that the names gathered there did not hold up as suspects.

Together, these efforts reveal the uncertainty built into long-running investigations: proximity can generate a lead, and a plausible theory can guide a search, but both still have to survive checking. Montgomery’s inquiries widened the field—from Janelle’s immediate circle to the killer’s possible childhood—while their reported outcomes also mark the limits of what those particular leads could establish.