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Amongst cold cases, missing person cases can be misunderstood, wrongly labeled, and overlooked. Public input and casting a wide net can change the direction and outcome of a case.
As always when we examine any cold case, we urge everyone to step up and share what they saw, heard, or know so that families and communities can move towards justice and closure. Even extremely old, cold cases can be solved with public participation, teamwork, and perseverance.
A 13-year-old boy is “missing.” He lived with his family in Miami Shores, a beautiful, well managed, suburban municipality less than 10 miles north of Downtown Miami.
He has been “missing” for over five decades.
In the view of our volunteer cold case team, he is likely not a “runaway” and not just “missing.” He is more likely a homicide victim whose body has never been found.
We have discovered the following.
Landon DeRiggi was 13 years old when he “disappeared” from his Miami Shores home on July 27, 1973. His mother reported him “missing” a few days later. For several decades, he has been categorized as a “missing person.”
Landon’s parents told Miami Shores Police that the family had just spent two days in the Everglades, returned home about 10 p.m., and planned to leave to visit Disney World the next day. That morning, Landon awoke and asked if he could go out to play. He was never seen again.
His mother reported him “missing” a few days later. Allegedly, Landon had run away for a day or so once before.
His backpack was found in a hedge near the home. It seems that he was immediately considered a “run-away,” and his is a case that soon became very cold. Since it was not considered a kidnapping or a homicide, it did not become a case for the MDPD, FDLE, or the FBI.
However, circumstances warranted a deeper look. In 1977 Landon’s parents sold their home in Miami Shores. They wrote a note to Landon, placed it in the electrical utility box, and moved to Georgia. We found that they changed their name, adopting as their last name, the maiden last name of Landon’s mother. They avoided cooperating with the missing person case and Lyndon’s mother said that she was dealing with medical issues.
Years later, after extensive delays and a prolonged lack of cooperation, a DNA sample was obtained from Landon’s parents – three decades after his disappearance. No matches have been disclosed. Age progression images were created and publicized, focusing on what Landon (Lanny) would look like as an adult. No results.
In 2008 the “missing person case” was featured in a local newspaper article. Miami Shores detectives continued to have the case in mind. Occasionally over the years a body would be found somewhere in the U.S. but each time it turned out not to be Landon.
In 2013 our volunteer team was investigating the 1966 disappearance of Danny Goldman from Surfside. Surfside and Miami Shores are nearby municipalities in northeast Miami-Dade County. There was a time when Danny Goldman also was considered a missing person, possibly a runaway seeking to avoid the draft.
The process of investigating the Goldman case was detail intensive and expansive in scope.
After 55 years of being a cold case, we were able to solve it and find numerous tentacles into other cases involving some of the same people. In that process, through a time frame of decades, and carefully reviewing every other major case, all major events, and all known criminals and associations, we came across the mysterious disappearance of Landon DeRiggi.
We uncovered information that seemed pertinent and shared it with detectives of the Miami Shores Police Department. We also shared it with the Miami-Dade Police Department Homicide Bureau which we were working with on the Goldman case. We asked detectives of the departments to review the case together.
Neither department had any awareness about the background and associations of Landon’s father. The investigation of Landon’s “disappearance” had never factored in that his father was actively involved in organized crime in Miami – until that involvement came to a stop when he was gravely wounded and then imprisoned. He would retain his knowledge, though, of the criminal side of Miami, including partnerships and betrayals.
Obvious questions about the case could not be ignored any longer. Why would a 13-year-old run away from home on the morning of going to Disney World?
Did Landon ever actually return to Miami Shores from the Everglades?
Why did Landon’s parents move out of state and change their names?
Uncovering ties to organized crime and corruption
Working towards answers, we discovered links of various kinds between the cases of Goldman and many others. Pieces of one puzzle often helped towards solving others as well. Contextual, circumstantial information indicates to us that Landon could have been a homicide victim, not a “missing person.” If so, he would not have been the only innocent young victim of a wave of criminality protected and concealed by shields of corruption.
We discovered information that had relevance to far more than a single case. An essential part of the context of 1966 in general, and the Goldman kidnapping/murder in particular, was the partnership of organized crime and public corruption.
We uncovered details, methods, and consequences of raging organized crime and murder with the direct involvement and participation of corrupt officials. We found answers to questions in numerous cases including what, who, when, where, and perhaps most importantly, why. Discovery of key records, interviews of living persons who were there at the scenes and were in law enforcement, and renewed compilations and analysis of evidence from multiple sources, reveals a stark level of criminality and official corruption.
In 1966, a ring of burglars was being run by a group that included high-ranking officials in the Dade County Sheriff’s Office. It was an organized crime operation with proceeds being divided among participants. Specific targets were fingered and assigned, with the jobs being protected.
The true story of a stolen diamond bracelet being discovered at a local event by a burglary victim is one of many examples of the situation. The bracelet was on the wrist of the wife of the Chief of Detectives of the Sheriff’s Office.
However, occasionally the burglars involved in the network became liabilities. If one of them threatened to talk, or was arrested by another agency, or was being sought by federal agents, he became immediately subject to various potential consequences. Possible exposure triggered a rapid response.
One such circumstance would involve the members of the Sheriff’s “upper echelon” giving information to the targeted burglar to the effect that at a particular address, there would be valuable loot, so go there tonight, bring a gun, be careful, and get everything you can.
The burglary assignment was made.
Then the same “upper echelon” would activate a team, frequently under the moniker of being a “Special Enforcement Squad,” which would be told that a tip had come in from a reliable informant about an impending burglary at a certain address. The selected deputies, detectives, and officers would follow orders to “stake it out, and be careful – the burglar(s) will be armed.”
On several occasions in 1966 a burglar of this ring was shot and killed entering a residence or business. In each case, deputies had advance knowledge of the anticipated burglary. In most of them, the “stake-out” was done from inside, rather than outside, the targeted location. Residents would be warned of an impending crime and removed.
Contrary to official versions, in one case the residents of an apartment in North Bay Village were taken to an adjacent apartment. They later stated that from there, they heard their front door opened and that gunfire erupted from inside without warning. The burglar was hit several times before a shotgun blast to the back of his head ended the encounter. An inquest into the shooting ruled that the shooting was justified and closed the case.
In another case in 1966, two burglars arrived at a home on SW 17th Street in Miami.
Waiting for them were deputies inside and officers outside the house. The two men opened the door and went inside. They knew that the housekeeper would intentionally leave the door unlocked at the request of a friend. They did not know that the friend also passed information to a City of Miami Police sergeant that she knew. The police sergeant had passed the word to Sheriff’s Office detectives.
Two steps inside, the first man, John Lamedica, was shot twice in the back by a detective hiding near the front door. He fell with a toy gun in his hand (not a .45 pistol as reported in the news) and died at the scene. Lamedica had been arrested just several days before for involvement in a stolen property ring and was out on bail. There was concern that he might talk about law enforcement corruption as a means of avoiding prison time. He needed to find money to pay a lawyer, and was told that he could make $5,000 by stealing from this particular home.
The second man was shot in the doorway, hit in the right shoulder and upper right arm with a blast from a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun. It was not a standard issue weapon in the Sheriff’s Office, but it was selected deliberately for use on this assignment. The burglar was severely wounded, but survived, and in some circles was thereafter known as “Lefty.”
The particular shotgun was checked out from the station two days prior to the “stakeout.”
There was advance planning. We also found out all about Grace Garbutt, Florence Eden, and Elaine Marshall. They helped with setting up the incident and were initially arrested as part of the operation. Florence Eden was soon given an official letter of clearance and appreciation by the Sheriff’s Office. Charges against Grace, Florence, and Elaine were dropped. “Lefty” was sentenced to eight years in state prison. He was paroled after four years.
“Lefty” is Landon’s father, then known as (born as) Michael Deriggi.
Since moving and taking on an assumed name, the parents have not publicly shared any information. The 1966 activity had not been known to authorities handling Landon DeRiggi’s 1973 “disappearance” until we delivered detailed information and documentation to them in 2013.
It was information that should have changed the course of the “missing person” case and opened an opportunity for collaboration and closure. Over a decade later the opportunity remains in pending status without official response. Full details, documentation, and proof was provided to authorities long before any public release.
In the interim, our volunteer team has uncovered truth in many related cases in part due to finding and recognizing connections amongst numerous victims, murders, and coverups.
There is much about the workings and consequences of crime in Florida that matters both historically and currently. We continue to share our findings with various agencies so that those able and willing to pursue justice in these cases will do so.
Agencies willing to be transparent and open about events of the past make great strides to enhance their levels of credibility and public confidence today. Agencies which prefer to keep long standing clouds in place to keep facts in the dark do the opposite.
The community awaits official disclosure of what happened to Landon Deriggi. Landon is not forgotten.
Paul D. Novack, Esq. is an Attorney at Law in Miami. He is a graduate of the Nova Southeastern College of Law and the University of Miami. Novack has an active civil litigation practice handling cases in numerous jurisdictions. He served six terms as mayor of the Town of Surfside, and served on behalf of the Florida House of Representatives on the Oversight Board for the Miami-Dade County School System.
He is a member of the Advisory Council to the Florida Highway Patrol. Novack leads a volunteer cold case investigation team that tackles Florida’s oldest and most vexing cold cases of murder and corruption. He has devoted tens of thousands of hours to public service and pro bono work.
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