HALIBUT TERRORIZER left an algae trail-4/16/00-BYLINE: William Booth-The Washington Post
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
In all his years as a law officer in Southern California, Redondo Beach Police Lt. John Skipper had seen bizarre crime scenes. But this one was different.
Perhaps it was the slime.
On the night of March 19, someone climbed the fence at the California Halibut Hatchery in the surfer-dude town of Redondo Beach, south of Los Angeles International Airport. The thief then entered the 5,000-gallon fish tank and did battle with determined though ultimately doomed members of the species Paralichthys californicus, better known as the California halibut.
Evidence was everywhere. Scales. Blood. Dead and dying victims. More than a dozen missing fish, as well as several abalone. And a trail of algae leading away to the suspect.
A few small fry? Nobody would have blinked. But somehow the assailant managed to wrestle Big Mama from her tub of salty water.
To what purpose?
"Foul play," Lt. Skipper guessed. Meaning: tender, moist, flaky fillets.
Residents and officialdom of Redondo Beach and surrounding South Bay communities were outraged.
"I've tried over 20 murder cases in my career," said Laurie Belger, the attorney defending the man accused of stealing the beloved halibut. "And nobody cared. But you steal this fish, and eat it? I tell you, it was as if he had barbecued Bambi. People want to put him in the gas chamber."
Why? Apparently, Big Mama wasn't just a large flounder.
She was the premier attraction at the California Halibut Hatchery, a nonprofit, down-at-the-heels enterprise committed to ensuring halibut will be there for future generations.
Estimated to weigh some 50 pounds, Big Mama, age 25, had been swimming circles in her aquarium at the hatchery for the past decade, occasionally doing her time in the "spawning tank," laying millions of eggs.
Soon after her death, a SWAT team descended upon the Hermosa Beach home where Taras Poznik was renting a back bedroom. There they found a net, a metal pole-spear and algae.
Poznik, a surfer and diver born and raised in the area, was well-known as a dude who liked a good time.
Poznik pleaded guilty Wednesday to grand theft of a fish. He was sentenced to four years in prison but will serve six months in county jail and then another six in a state facility for alcoholic treatment. He also must pay $ 50,000.
What did Poznik do with Big Mama? It appears he served her at a Manhattan Beach birthday barbecue.
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