Deep Dive | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

Phoebe Judge: What are you most often diving for, looking for weapons, or bodies, or...? Dave Mascarenas: Our basic search is for bombs,
bodies, narcotics, and evidence. Phoebe Judge: Dave Mascarenas is a sergeant with the LAPD. He's also the supervisor for their Underwater Dive Unit,
where he's been diving for the last 18 years. Dave Mascarenas: Our diving aspect is not like
what most people think that you go down recreationally, and you can see 100 feet,
and the water's warm, and all that good stuff. Our average dive, the waters are cold off our
coast so we're wearing 7 millimeter, quarter-inch wetsuits, and most of the time our visibility is less than a foot. Phoebe Judge: He started scuba diving in
high school, performed waterborne operations in the military, and then joined the LAPD,
where he's worked in a lot of different units. The crash unit, anti-gang unit, bike patrol in Hollywood, but no matter what department he was working with, he could be
called away at any time to go on a dive. Dave Mascarenas: I have been in underground
watersheds that are about 100 feet wide, by 200 feet long, by almost 100 feet deep that
are completely enclosed in cement, and had to be lowered in by a rope to get in there and do
investigations. That's kind of troubling, when you know that there's no escape if you have an issue.
I have been in dams, in top of mountains. I have been in the LA River searching for bodies.
I had to be deployed by helicopter into the ocean, and do giant strides off the piers. We pretty
much do everything in our department, because we try not to say no to an investigation if at all
possible because then we're sending a message that hey this is a good idea to dump evidence here.
Phoebe Judge: But in the summer of 2013, the LAPD Dive Unit got a call that sounded so unreasonable
it had to be a joke. Detectives had gotten a tip on a high-profile murder case — a case they still
aren't releasing many details about. The murder happened in 2011, and the investigation had
gone cold — until they got word that evidence may have been thrown in the La Brea tar pits.
It was like being asked to scuba dive in a pit of toxic, cold molasses. How could you even see in it, let alone breathe? Dave Mascarenas: And at first we were joking
about it. It's like, "Yeah, that's not really going to happen. There's no way we could pull
that off." But once we receive a request from a detective to do an investigation, my job is
to see if that's something that we can do. Phoebe Judge: I would feel like that would
be something that you'd say, "I'm sorry that is nothing we can do." Dave Mascarenas: Well, keep in mind that, yes, we're the Underwater Dive Unit,
but there's a lot of things that we can do that might not necessarily mean we have to
do a dive investigation. We have remote-operated vehicles. We have accessories and equipment that
we can deploy sometimes. And nobody knew if anything would function or not. Everybody's
best guess was no, nothing would work. Phoebe Judge: When he says, "Everybody's
best guess was no," he means everybody. This was an all hands on deck analysis. The LA Fire
Department, Port Police, Beach Police, geologists, archeologists, diving experts, and even the people
who design the underwater search equipment. Their concern was that those remote operated
vehicles emit small electric sparks. Even when they're supposed to be airtight to go underwater,
no one could be certain they wouldn't let off sparks that might cause an explosion
and set the whole tar pit on fire. They tried other options. Hooks, and grabbers, magnets,
nothing worked. But they were able to use a sonar system to confirm that the pieces of
evidence were in fact down there in the tar. Dave Mascarenas: So now we were in a situation
where we have identified items that need to be looked at, and we can't retrieve them
via equipment. So we decided that maybe we would try to put a diver into the tar...
[Music.] Phoebe Judge: Did you sit around and pick straws, [laughter] or did you think ‘this is my calling?’ How did you get chosen to do this?
Dave Mascarenas: Well at that time I was the OIC, the officer in charge of the investigation.
But this is a scenario where I could be asking somebody to go in harm's way, and most likely
they're not going to come back from it. How would I feel being the person that makes the phone call,
and says I told my officer to do that, and he did it, and knowing he's most likely going to get
hurt, and he does? And then I have to deal with the family. So I decided if anybody was going to
do it, it was going to be me and that way nothing could possibly come back. If I get injured,
or I don't come back, well, it was my decision. Phoebe Judge: Did you stop and — wait,
are you married? Dave Mascarenas: I am married, 29 years. Phoebe Judge: 29, and you have kids? Dave Mascarenas: I have two sons, 31 and 25.
Phoebe Judge: So did you call your wife, and say, "Listen I have to do this crazy thing,
what do you think?" Or you decided it's better not to tell her? Dave Mascarenas: No, that was one of those scenarios where you beg for forgiveness later,
and not say anything. I looked at it like this: I've had a good life. I've had a great
career. I've done a lot of things. My kids are older. If something bad happened, my wife's
going to be taken care of. And when I talked to my lieutenant at the time who's now retired,
he basically said, "Dave do we want to send the message that we can't do this, there's somewhere a
bad guy can go and get away with something?" [Music.] Phoebe Judge: And so, he and his colleagues started planning and preparing for the dive.
But most of that planning went straight out the window as soon as he got underwater.
I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal. [Music.] Dave Mascarenas: There was actually three pits. The main pit that most people see,iIt looks just like a big
small lake of black tar, the consistency of pudding, it looks like to me. Phoebe Judge: Tens of thousands of years ago, tectonic pressure starting forcing oil up
to the surface of the earth, and it pooled in these small lakes in what is now Los Angeles.
And the reason they're something of a tourist attraction is because prehistoric animals would wade in, and get stuck. They couldn't escape, and would
eventually die, and their bones were perfectly preserved by the oil. They're still there today.
There's a saber toothed tiger that's thought to be 44,000 years old, and a coyote that's 46,000 years old. It looks like something you would walk into
and just disappear forever. Dave Mascarenas: Yes, you see bubbles coming up. That's the methane gas coming through, and some are bigger,
and smaller so you're always hearing popping noises. But it basically yeah, it looks like
once you step in you're not coming back. In fact they even have a couple of prehistoric dinosaur
creatures that are fake ones that they have on the side. Some of them are halfway in the pit,
showing, depicting what happened in the past. Phoebe Judge: On June 6th, 2013, Dave and his
team arrived at the tar pits very early in the morning. Dave wore a hazardous material suit. The suit manufacturers said they thought it should hold up in the tar,
but also that if too much time passed the suit could dissolve and eventually burn itself up.
So Dave took extra precautions. He put duct tape on all the seals. For his breathing, air was
pumped down from the surface, and they'd set up a radio system so Dave could hear instructions from
people on land. I asked him if he was nervous. Dave Mascarenas: I don't know about being nervous,
my more thought was I've got to pull this off. We're probably only going to get one shot at
this. And now everybody's there, the media, and everywhere else, and I have all my peers there.
I want to do the best job that we can, and I want to do it as safely as possible. And at the end of
the day I wanted to be able to go back home. Phoebe Judge: The first step was to bring in a
firetruck to use the high powered hoses to clear away the top layer of tar until the surface was
something more, as Dave says, "liquidy." Then they rigged safety lines in two different
directions going across the pit, and lowered a rowboat into the tar. And then Dave waded in.
Dave Mascarenas: As soon as I got in, as soon as my face passed through the first layer,
and went through the second layer, and third layer all you see is a dull green avocado-colored hue.
Some parts of the tar were like pudding where you could basically pat it, and feel it,
and you would be okay, and other parts you touched and you immediately got stuck. And
it was like a cartoon commercial where your gloves would stretch a foot until it finally gave away.
Phoebe Judge: The plan was that people on land would monitor the sonar. They would
then guide Dave through his radio on where to look, or in this case where to put out
his hands and try to grab at something. Dave Mascarenas: However, it was very difficult. You can't swim normally in tar. You can't really kick. So what we came up with is,
we had a 30 or 40 foot pole that the guys from the boat put in the tar, and once I submerged I grabbed onto that pole, and I would use that to pull myself down,
and to pull myself. And then keep moving it forward a foot at a time into the directions
that the radio man was giving me. "We need you to move three feet to your right,
two feet to your left." That kind of thing. Because my gauges and equipment I couldn't see, and nothing was working. Phoebe Judge: So they'd be radioing to you,
and saying, "It's there. That's there. Put your hand down." You'd put your hand down,
you'd feel the object, whatever this evidence is, and you'd grab it, and then you'd put it somewhere, in a pocket or...? Dave Mascarenas: Well it's not — I wish it
was as easy as that. Now, you have a dry suit on, you have a glove on. Have you ever put on
like two or three layers of gloves when it's real cold in the wintertime for the snow,
and you can't really grab very well? That's kind of the same situation. So you had to say, "Okay,
that's not, basically, shape or size of what I'm looking for. This is basically the shape
or size of what I'm looking for." And there was no way of putting it in an evidence bag or container.
So what I basically did is once I found that item I brought it up to the guys in the boat,
and they put it in an evidence container. Phoebe Judge: You could have had your hand
on a million year old crocodile jaw. Dave Mascarenas: I could have. Yeah, there was some weird things down there, so... Phoebe Judge: It was supposed to be a nine minute
dive. That's what they'd planned. It wasn't safe to be down there longer. First off,
it was very hot, but also because the longer his hazardous material suit was exposed to the tar, the more likely it was to dissolve. But then Dave got stuck.
Dave Mascarenas: I got my whole arm and hand and shoulder stuck, and to, all of it came up
to my face mask. And I started grabbing on the pole, and pulling as hard as I could,
and let them know that I'm stuck, and to start pulling with the ropes. And then my left leg got
stuck, and my fin got stuck. And I thought, "Well, I gave it a good shot." I can feel
the pressure on my — I'm wearing a harness system so I could literally feel it pulling
on chest and ribs, and finally I got out. Phoebe Judge: He got unstuck, and pulled himself
to the surface to hand the recovered object to the men in the rowboat. He could have called it a day,
but he knew that there was more evidence down there. The job wasn't done. And in
spite of that close call, Dave went back down. And immediately got stuck again.
Dave Mascarenas: And that time I don't even know how I didn't lose my fin. I felt it coming off,
and I went to reach down with my hand, and when my hand got stuck the glove felt
like it stretched about a foot to two feet, my fingers and everything, and finally snapped out.
And I thought, "Okay, well I'm not going to make it this time. Somebody is going to have to make
that phone call." And I got out, so. Phoebe Judge: This is a good commercial for duct tape. Dave Mascarenas: Duct tape actually worked.
Phoebe Judge: What was supposed to be a nine minute dive ended up being 77 minutes. Because
none of his dive equipment functioned, no one knows how deep Dave went, but the estimate is
anywhere from 7 to 17 feet. [Music.]. What did it look like when you emerged? You must have just been,
you must have been quite a sight. Dave Mascarenas: I was mostly full of tar. My suit had to be trashed. The mask was full of tar. My gloves were full of tar trash. The
fins, actually, whatever the material were, they were partly melted and deformed. And
when we took off the gloves my hands were full of tar, and then somehow my hood had to have moved because when they took off the mask one side of my face,
and my ears, and my neck were full of tar. Phoebe Judge: He was nauseated and lightheaded,
but after being checked out by the EMTs and monitored for a couple of hours, they gave him an all-clear. [Music.]
So, what did you say when you got home that night to your wife? Dave Mascarenas: I actually didn't get a chance to say anything. Like normal, I don't like to
come home and talk about my work because the different units I've been at — I've been in a
lot of specialized units, I've had some very bad experiences. Some of the stuff you've seen on TV
I've been involved in, kind of thing. So I would just come home, and normally I'd have my clothes
in a plastic bag and say, "Here take this to the cleaners, and don't touch it because it's got
biohazard on it, or something." And this day I was coming in, I walk in the door,
and my wife is standing there, and she had a mean look in her face. And I said, "Hi honey."
And the first thing she did, she punched me, and she punched me hard. She works out so she hit me
pretty hard. And then she burst out in tears, and then hugged me, and she said, "You almost died,
and you didn't even tell me?" I'm like, "Well what are you talking about?" She said, "It was all over
the news. We were watching it at work." Leslie Mascarenas: Yeah, I wasn't happy.
Phoebe Judge: Dave's wife Leslie Mascarenas. Leslie Mascarenas: I walked through the door,
and I walked up to him, and I punched him in the chest. Not hard. And then I hugged him, and I said, "Don't ever do that again." And he said,
"Okay." I think he was shocked because I've never hit him like that. I was just so angry,
but then just so happy that he was still standing there, and he wasn't dead or in
the hospital seriously injured, or something, with the methane gas. So I was kind of mad and
happy at the same time. [Laughs.] And scared. Phoebe Judge: You said that you didn't punch
him hard, but he says that you did. And he said that you punched him hard because you work out.
Leslie Mascarenas: [Laughs.] Well for a girl I guess it was hard. [Laughs.] I do try to take care of myself, so. Phoebe Judge: What is it like to live
with someone who is actually doing a job, and has this mentality, and mindset of,
I care about my job, I love my job so much that, yeah, I'll risk my life? Leslie Mascarenas: And it's funny because people ask me that all the time like,
"Aren't you nervous?" Or, "Don't you get nervous every time he goes to work." And I said,
"No, he's one of those people that you just know he can take care of himself." You know? It's just who he is. And I knew that marrying him. So you just have to take it
in stride. If I worried about it every day I would probably have ulcers, or something. [Laughs.]
[Music.] Phoebe Judge: The evidence Dave recovered in the tar pits did help the detectives bring suspects into custody.
We checked in with them one more time last week to see if he could give us any update
on the case. And he wrote in an email that the investigation is still open, and at least one individual is outstanding. He says his fellow officers have a nickname for
him now: La Brea Dave. And while you'd think this would give him a free pass on the next weird job
it hasn't. Now people know what he can do. [Music.] Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohrer and me. Audio engineering help from Rob Byers and Russ
Henry. Julienne Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal.
You can see them at thisiscriminal.com, where you can also find a link to the new Criminal 2016 calendar, and a set of postcards with our favorite illustrations.
Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the 13 best
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In her episode Toki Pona she teams up with fellow Radiotopian Nate DiMeo from The Memory
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Sgt. David Mascarenas from the LAPD is known as the department's Dive Supervisor. He’s been diving his whole life, and prides himself on never refusing a dive, no matter how treacherous. But in the summer of 2013, a murder investigation led him into the unusually murky waters of the La Brea tar pits. Sgt. David Mascarenas checked in with us in 2020, and he was able to tell us more about the investigation.

Listen to the update here: https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-136-la-brea-dave-3-20-2020

Music in the episode: “Tortuga” by Trigg & Gusset “Thaw Outro” by Kai Engel “History Explains Itself” by The Losers “Led by the Dress Colored in Red” by Augustus Bro & Gallery Six “Plantopia” by Plusplus “Beat the Burglar” by Scott Holmes

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 33 originally published 12/17/2015 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-33-deep-dive-12-18-2015

Brief Summary

LAPD diver Dave Mascarenas recounts a dangerous dive into the La Brea Tar Pits to recover evidence from a cold murder case.

Key points

Diving into the Unknown. Dave Mascarenas prepares for a dangerous dive into the La Brea tar pits.
A Risky Decision. Dave Mascarenas decides to take on the dangerous dive himself.
The Aftermath. Dave returns home to a shocked wife after his harrowing dive.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I decided if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be me.

Dave Mascarenas on taking the risk for the dive.

5:03WatchNov 10, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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