By Anthony F. Irwin
A 30-year-old missing person case recently solved by two retired officers at the Fullerton Police Department could result in a death sentence for the man accused of carrying out the bone-chilling murder. 
Tom Basham and Ed Contreras have a combined 60 years of police work in their careers. Yet they both agree that the case of David Campbell, now 68 and facing special-circumstances murder charges, is unlike anything they’ve ever seen.
Basham and Contreras spent more than a year solving the mystery of missing 31-year-old Frank Bartlett Marshall, tying his murder to Campbell, and getting Campbell to confess to the crime — all without the benefit of a body to help prove their case.
Basham and Contreras make up the FPD’s Cold Case Unit, formed in 2011. Previously, the FPD would ask detectives to look into cold cases during their free time in the office. Problem is, the detectives rarely had time to do so.
The FPD teamed up Basham and Contreras in the hopes that unsolved crimes wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle.
The idea so far has paid off big.
The Marshall case was the first to be assigned to the pair after the cold case unit was formed in November 2011.
“We’re batting 1,000!” Contreras said with a laugh.
“Bart,” as most people called Marshall, went missing Jan. 2, 1982. His foster sister, Kathy Tessanne, never gave up on trying to find him. She worked with Basham and Contreras in an effort to bring closure to her family.
“Everyone kind of knew what was going on (that Campbell had killed Marshall), but there was no body, no proof — let alone motive,” Contreras said.
Said Basham: “The first thing you have to understand about (Campbell) is his reality is completely different from yours or mine. He’s a genius. Don’t get me wrong, but his mind doesn’t work in the same way as most.”
Campbell, for example, believed himself to be the reincarnated soul of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, according to the FDP detectives. And Campbell also believed that Basham was a former Army comrade and that Contreras was an adversary.
GRUESOME DOUBLE HOMICIDE
Campbell’s story begins with a Halloween night right out of a gruesome Hollywood script.
On Oct. 31, 1981, Campbell, then 35, shot, killed and mutilated the remains of Kim Raber, then 29, according to police records.
Then, on Dec. 30 of that same year, he did the same to 17-year-old John Fischer. For these crimes, Campbell was convicted and sentenced to two life terms. Both of the victims had disappeared from Fullerton in late 1981.
Campbell believed in Tibetan sky burial ceremonies, in which the deceased were cut into pieces because the soil in those mountains is too hard for graves to be dug, according to the detectives. The idea is to expose the remains to the elements as a means to return the body to the Earth.
“Campbell’s justification for those murders was out of a sort of vigilante justice,” Basham said. “He tied Raber to another murder-rape case and was convinced Fischer stole from him.”
And Marshall?
“Bart was in the wrong place at the absolute wrong time,” Basham said. “The three (Campbell, Raber, and Bart) were previously acquaintances. When Bart returned home after living up north for a while, he asked how Kim was doing.
“It was completely innocent, asking about a mutual friend. But Campbell took it to mean he knew about the murder. (Bart) had no idea what he was getting himself into.”
REMAINS IN MOUNTAINS
Six months after Marshall’s disappearance, hikers found a pair of hands near Big Bear Mountain and reported them to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. At that point, however, DNA testing hadn’t become common practice, and the hands couldn’t be matched to Marshall.
Three years later, more hikers found a skull – Marshall’s, it would later be determined – in that same area. Again, the skull was turned in to detectives, but it couldn’t be matched to anyone.
During their initial investigation, the detectives were able to gather enough information – including a confession – to file a murder case in Orange County. After that case was filed, the detectives found out about the discoveries in San Bernardino County of Marshall’s hands and skull.
Their investigation had developed to the point where Campbell was willing to show Basham and Contreras where else they might find remains. It led to one of the eeriest days of either detective’s career.
“We asked permission to temporarily release (Campbell) into our custody and, boy, did that cause a stir,” Basham said of that day. “We had to get permission from the county Superior Court to put our request to the higher ups in the State. Long story short, there were plenty of hoops.
“Officials were nervous about (Campbell’s) release, but, finally, we got permission. We had plenty of back up, just in case. We had him in an undercover van followed by three or four police vehicles.
“He would joke, ‘I don’t get this much attention in the can.’”
Campbell led the detectives and an excavation crew down the path he followed when he dumped the victims’ bodies. The territory crossed four counties from San Diego to San Bernardino.
Anytime the detectives arrived at a dumping place, Campbell would lead the unit through some treacherous terrain, at times reminding those following him of his physical size and strength.
“Even while shackled from head to toe, he was jumping around like a billy goat,” Basham said.
At one point, the detectives recalled, Campbell thought he was about to find the skull of Raber, the first of his victims. When he thought he’d found the site where he buried Raber, Campbell started kicking at the ground before the excavation grew could start digging.
Campbell’s first murder was “a religious experience,” Contreras and Basham said. Campbell’s preferred outcome before he was imprisoned was to dig up Raber’s skull, find the reincarnated soul of his first victim, and present that skull as a gift of sorts to the present-day version of his first victim.
The two skulls that were found – those of Fischer and Marshall – both had a bullet hole in the forehead. Along with the Tibetan sky funeral, this was Campbell’s signature method of killing, the FPD detectives said. They were able to analyze and match the casings to each other, thus allowing them to tie Campbell’s weapon to the murders.
Contreras said of his experience in searching for Marshall: “A lot of attention was given to the Fischer case because he was a minor at the time of his murder. Raber was the first of the murders and was found relatively quickly. Unfortunately, Marshall was put on the backburner and the lack of evidence made it hard for the department to pursue (the case).
“Documentation on that evidence wasn’t the easiest to work with, and technology was nowhere near where it (is now).”
All that was left to do was use DNA technology to match any of the discovered remains to Marshall. Sky Marshall, Bart’s biological brother, gave a DNA sample the detectives could use to match some taken from Bart’s remains; and end a search three decades in the making.
“It’s very sad and unfortunate what happened to Bart, but oh my gosh, after 31 years, the truth finally came out,” Tessanne told the Orange County Register. “I am so grateful to the Fullerton Police Department for taking this case and giving us the truth. They did an unbelievable job.”
