Richard G. Epstein

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HOLLYWOOD BOY GENIUS,

CHARGED WITH MURDER

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Death of Lloyd Krinby

Was No Accident

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Case is Solved by

Lt. Palumbo

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Special to the Sentinel-Observer

by

Wendy Gorn

The Crime Beat

When Lloyd Krinby died six months ago, no one suspected foul play. He had a fatal heart attack while he was trying out a virtual reality entertainment that has being developed by Bob Steward, Hollywood's boy genius. The whole basis of Mr. Steward's phenomenal success as the producer of Hollywood's most popular virtual reality entertainments is that he carefully tests them out on human subjects while he measures their physiological response to what they are experiencing. 

Now, in a startling development, Bob Steward has been charged with murder in the death of Lloyd Krinby. It turns out that Lloyd Krinby's heart attack was no accident. Los Angeles police officer Lt. Palumbo is credited with solving the case. Lt. Palumbo held a NewsNet teleconference in order to explain how he did it. The following is a transcript of his remarks.

Let me tell you, when I first got involved in this case, I said to myself, "What a case!" I knew something was wrong right from the start. I knew Bob Steward did it from the moment that I first met him, but I didn't know how he did it or why. You see, nobody knew the exact cause of Lloyd Krinby's death, we hadn't made that public, but when I first met Bob Steward he said, "It's really surprising that a man of his age and in his physical condition would suffer from cardiac arrest." I mean, how did he know that the cause of death was cardiac arrest? It could have been a stroke, poisoning, another kind of heart attack, but how did he know the specific cause of death?

Then I learned about the affair between Lloyd Krinby and Mrs. Steward. That was just by accident. I noticed that Mr. Krinby had made a lot of phone calls to Bob Steward's home phone number during the day, when Bob Steward is at work, so he wasn't calling to speak to Mr. Steward. It was Mrs. Steward that he was interested in. Yes, they were having one of these torrid affairs that you read about in Hollywood, so I knew that Bob Steward had a motive. Bob Steward had a motive to kill Lloyd Krinby, but how did he do it?

Then I started to look into why Bob Steward is called the "boy genius of Hollywood". Well, I guess you Hollywood reporters know more about that than I do, but it's really interesting when you start to look into it. And I did look into it. I read his book, Bob Steward's book, on how to measure people's reactions to virtual reality entertainments so that you could produce virtual realities that would really make their hearts pound in their chests - now that's an exact quote. Here's the book. Page 47. "My goal is to learn how to play the human organism like a musical instrument, so that the virtual realities that I create will completely overwhelm the user, making their hearts pound in their chests."

It seems like Bob Steward became famous by inventing a new technology that hooks people up to computers and medical devices in order to study how they react to virtual reality entertainments. You see, he hooks people up to blood pressure machines, EKGs and things like that as they try out his experimental virtual reality entertainments. He uses this knowledge to create the scariest, most thrilling virtual reality entertainments that have ever been produced. I tried one out, and I can tell you, never again. That virtual reality of his was really scary!

And, of course, if you know how I operate once I've identified the murderer, it should come as no surprise to you that I had occasion to talk to Mr. Steward about his work. He loves to talk about his work. Maybe that was his downfall. Not only does he make virtual reality entertainments, but he makes movies and political advertisements as well. He probably knows how to manipulate people's emotions better than anyone on this planet. It's more than an art. It's a science. He knows that this image will do that to the heart, and that image will do some other thing to the heart. He knows what these virtual reality entertainments do to every major organ of the body. I tell you, this man can play the human body the way that Jasha Minowitz plays the violin. I guess, he achieved what he set out to achieve.

Then one day Bob Steward said what I was waiting to hear. We were talking about how to make a really scary virtual reality entertainment.  All of a sudden he said that he knew how to induce cardiac arrest using images and sounds in virtual reality. He said that he knew how to create such a chaotic rhythm in the heart using virtual reality entertainment, that he could induce cardiac arrest.

Now, you see, that's where he messed up, because he got too sure of himself and decided that he would play with me. He thought that he was the cat and I was the mouse. But I'm the cat! He's the mouse! He knew that I knew that he murdered Mr. Krinby, but he didn't think that I could actually prove it. How could I prove that he intentionally killed Mr. Krinby using a virtual reality entertainment?

I found out from Mrs. Krinby that Bob Steward had convinced her husband to test out virtual reality entertainments on a regular basis. This told me that Bob Steward was collecting medical data on Lloyd Krinby. That is, he had him hooked up to all of these devices, measuring his heart beat, his blood pressure, and over many months he came to know Lloyd Krinby's heart better than a heart surgeon would, and he knew how Lloyd Krinby's heart would react to various stimuli. He knew that Lloyd Krinby's heart had an underlying defect that he could exploit. I learned about the underlying defect from Mr. Krinby's physician, a nice man, but you probably don't need to know about that.

So, how could I prove that Bob Steward got Lloyd Krinby to try out a virtual reality entertainment that Bob Steward intentionally created with the intent of killing Lloyd Krinby? What a case! I mean with all this new technology, who knows how many ways people will come up with in order to kill one another?

I was desperate, so I decided on my usual strategy in situations like this - entrapment.

I communicated my suspicions to Mrs. Steward, who loved Lloyd deeply, and was hoping to divorce her husband. She agreed to cooperate in my plan.

I had a young officer pretend that he was having an affair with Mrs. Steward. Of course, Mr. Steward didn't know that the young man was a police officer. Within a month after the affair started, Bob Steward arranged to enlist the young officer to test out some virtual reality entertainments, to help his company with its marketing research. I mean, that's what Bob Steward's company does: production and marketing.

We made sure that the officer said, "But Mr. Steward, I know you make some really scary virtual realities and I am not sure that the old ticker can take it. I had valve replacement surgery when I was a teenager."

For the next few weeks Bob Steward conducted his study of the young officer's heart, but we had a real computer whiz helping us.  He wired up the young officer so that some of the readings that Bob Steward took were incorrect. We simulated some kind of irregularity in the young officer's heart.

Then, Bob Steward struck, and he gave us some indications, by his behavior, and things he said, as to when he would strike. He created a virtual reality entertainment that is so horrific that I think it should be burned. In any case, he asked the young officer to test the virtual reality entertainment and right at the moment that Bob Steward anticipated, the young officer feigned a heart attack. It was pretty easy for the officer to identify the climactic moment, the ultimate scare that was supposed to kill him.

Bob Steward hovered over the lifeless body and calmly said, "That'll teach you to play around with my wife! Say hello to Lloyd Krinby for me!"

We had two other officers present, plus myself, as witnesses, and we arrested Bob Steward on the spot.

We confiscated the murder weapon, that virtual reality software that he created, but I'd be reluctant to demonstrate it to a panel of judges. There might be a judge with a bad ticker.

So this technology of manipulating people with images and with sounds, it has become really sophisticated. It's gotten to the point where you can commit murder with a scary virtual reality entertainment or game. Sometimes, when you realize the evil that people are capable of committing, you just don't feel like getting out of bed.   But, I do, because Mrs. Palumbo, she can't stand it if I lie around the house.