BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- An armed robber held five hostages for 13 hours in a luxurious Rodeo Drive jewelry store in a tense drama that ended with the deaths of three captives and the arrest of the suspect as he tried to sneak away under a blanket.
One of the victims was killed in a parking lot Monday night as the gunman tried to slip out of the plush Van Cleef & Arpels of California store with three hostages. Police said the other two were 'apparently killed execution style' in the store during the standoff.
Apparently the only demand by the suspect, identified as Steven Livaditis, 22, was for a meeting with a television reporter and TV so he could watch himself.
The drama, played out against the pastel walls of some of the most expensive stores in the world, came to an end at 10:30 p.m. Monday when police spotted the supsect trying to escape with the hostages.
'There he is, he's got a gun,' an officer yelled.
Police, who had just spoken to the gunman and told reporters they were prepared to wait all night rather than storm the building and endanger the hostages, said they were caught by surprise.
'Several people came out (of the back of the building) through a door covered with a blanket ... tied together and attempted to make their way to a parking lot,' Beverly Hills Police Lt. Bill Hunt said. 'There was no indication at all they were coming out.'
A sheriff's spokesman said the gunman 'may have fired once' and a hostage slumped to the ground.
It was then, Deputy Dave Hogan said, that a police sniper fired one shot. 'We don't know if he struck anything.'
A SWAT team lobbed tear gas and concussion grenades.
Livaditis was taken away in an ambulance, as were the three hostages he had tied to him beneath the dark blanket.
One of the three was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital of a gunshot wound. Two more hostages were found dead in the building, apparently slain 'execution style,' during the daylong seige, Hunt said.
The robber, who identified himself as 'John' in a telephone conversation with United Press International about 4 hours into the standoff, claimed he had stabbed a store security guard to death because the man disobeyed his orders 'to keep his mouth shut.'
'He was talking back to me ... I murdered him. I stabbed him,' the gunman said.
Asked if he regretted killing the guard, he said, 'Absolutely not. I do not regret it. It was the appropriate thing to do at the time. He failed to obey my orders.'
The gunman's only demand was that a television crew be sent into the store so 'I can watch myself on TV.' Police refused the request and the tense drama dragged on into the night.
He said he did not fear a police charge.
'I have no fear of death,' he said. 'It's just the type of person I am. It's me. I don't care about dying.
'I'm going to reach the point soon where I'm going to have to execute someone else if my demands are not met.'
He ended the conversation by saying, 'Have a nice day.'
A woman hostage who identified herself as Ann Heilperin, 40, a saleswoman, told UPI the captives had been tied up. She sobbed 'it's hopeless' and pleaded that the gunman's demand to appear on television be granted. She was later killed.
Store employee Hugh Skinner, who was killed in the escape attempt, told UPI in the same conversation that it 'was very important' that the man appear on TV.
The bodies of Heilperin and Bill Smith, the security guard who the suspect claimed to have stabbed, were found lying face down next to each other with their hands tied behind them inside the store. Police said Smith had been stabbed and Heilperin had been shot.
The two surviving hostages were identified as Carol Lambert, 42, a saleswoman treated for burns apparently caused by the concussion grenades, and Robert Taylor, 50, a shipping clerk who complained of chest pains.
Several other employees managed to escape shortly after the bandit entered the store at opening time.
More than 80 heavily armed officers surrounded the chic store, cordoning off several blocks of one of the world's most expensive shopping districts. Art galleries and such shops as Gucci, Chanel and Giorgio reportedly lost up to $2 million in sales for the day.
First lady Nancy Reagan was staying in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel about two blocks away and a spokesman said she was aware of the drama.
Police, summoned to the scene by a silent alarm about 10 a.m. negotiated with the gunman by telephone, describing his mood as 'up and down.' At one point they delivered food to the front of the store but no one ever came out to get it.
Several nearby shops were evacuated. A hairdresser from an evacuated salon finished cutting a customer's hair in an alley.
The suspect told UPI he had walked into the store, robbed it and then taken the hostages when he spotted police outside.
'My intention was to take jewelry and leave, with nobody hurt,' he said. 'It didn't work out that way.'
In a phone conversation with the Mutual Broadcasting System, the gunman said he had planned to rob the store because he thought the jeweler had cheated him.
'Van Cleef & Arpels cheated me out of some jewelry a long time ago,' he said. 'They gave me fake jewelry, you know, and I tried to return it and they wouldn't accept it. So I got very irritated and I went back here to collect.'
