In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired intelligence detective Gary Jenkins welcomes a special guest—Don Tabak, a former LAPD homicide detective whose life story bridges the world of real crime and creative storytelling.
With decades on the force, Det. Don Tabak shares the emotional and technical complexities of working on some of Los Angeles’s most brutal homicide cases. He recounts haunting moments from the field, including a harrowing investigation involving a kidnapped woman who miraculously survived an attempted murder. Don walks us through the steps that led to justice—and the toll that work takes on those who pursue it.
After retiring from law enforcement, Don founded a private investigation firm that defends police officers and municipalities. However, his career took a surprising turn when a Hollywood producer approached him about adapting his real-life cases. That partnership gave rise to The Wiggle Room—an interactive crime-solving experience where audiences step into the role of investigator, uncover clues, and solve cases rooted in reality. It’s part thriller, part education, and all authentic.
The conversation also touches on Don’s take on the O.J. Simpson case, offering an insider’s look at how public pressure and procedural missteps shaped one of the most infamous trials in American history. He explains the razor-thin margin between justice and error, and why evidence integrity remains a detective’s most crucial tool.
Finally, Don Tebak unpacks the psychology behind effective interrogation, revealing how detectives walk the fine line between coaxing out the truth and understanding the emotional terrain of a suspect’s mind.
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Transcript
[0:00] Well, hey, welcome, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a little different sort of a show for you today. We're not going to go down that path of organized crime. You probably get tired of that anyhow. And what I found, I found another retired copper named Don Tabak from L.A. Who's got in the entertainment business, just like yours truly. I guess I'm in the entertainment business. I'm in the entertainment hobby, as I just told Don. But, you know, anyhow, guys, welcome Don Tabak from LAPD. Hey, Gary, good to be here. Nice to meet you. Great, man. You got a good voice. You got a voice for radio. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank God. I have a good voice for radio, too.
[0:40] Tell us what you're doing when you're retirement. Well, I opened up a private investigations business, Gary, when I left. And I primarily do police officer and municipality defense for critical incidents. So a lot of the things that happen across the country. After the fact, the lawsuit is filed, I'll be brought in to re-interview witnesses, talk to the officers, and try to mitigate what's going on with the lawsuit. And if the officer is in trouble with that as well, we'll represent the officer to try to make sure that we hopefully can clear him of any wrongdoing. You also, now how'd you get involved with this media business, the TV business? I got contacted throughout my career because of LA and some of the cases that we've handled in the past. It's media-friendly between law enforcement. So when I left about five years ago, A producer who had known a friend of mine had given this guy my name about, yeah, Don's had some unusual cases and worked this and that and whatever. And he called and we put together a couple of things that he wanted to try to bring to Discovery or Netflix in regards to some of my murders that I handled.
[1:49] And however, they didn't work out or what have you. So about a year ago, he came up with a concept called The Wiggle Room. And this is a very small audience like an old nightclub room in a hollywood or in a hotel here in hollywood and it's basically like my part of this is to bring in me talk about a couple of my cases um it's interactive there's a live audience there and then at the end of the second half of this we'll talk about one of my crime scenes and let the people have a shot at it and trying to figure out what happened and who did it and did they have enough probable cause of good this and that and really get them an idea on how frustrating it is sometimes working some of these murders.
[2:30] Interesting. So tell us about your police experience in this. Were you assigned to the LAPD homicide division or robbery homicide? How does that break down? Yes, sir. I started out as a young detective. I've worked a number of detective divisions. LAPD has 18 geographic divisions in the city of Los Angeles, and each one has a homicide unit. Although now it's centralized. But I eventually worked my way up to starting my own homicide unit. It was an arson bombing homicide unit. We worked in the same area as robbery homicide. Worked a buttload of cases over the 12 years that I worked murders before I retired. And handled all kinds of different things. Got involved with some phenomenal cases. I thank God wasn't here when OJ was being tried. It was my unit that did that. And just in the give and take of the murders in Los Angeles back in the day, there's a lot of interesting cases that we talk about in this crime scene live. I bet. So was that out of a division station, the Hollenbeck station? No, sir. It was out of our detective headquarters division, DHD. They call it the same area that our RV homicide division is in. Okay. So that's down at Parker Center? The specialized unit, yeah, it was. Yeah, downtown, the central. Okay. So you were the big boys compared to them. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's how we look at it, don't we?
[3:54] That's how we look at it. You know, that's how it is. So I wasn't too varsity. I was kind of like between JV and varsity. Okay, all right. We all want to make the varsity on the PD. A lot of people don't understand that out there, the breakdown between different units, but we all want to make that first team. I'm a working B, Gary. Then some of those guys kind of like kick back on their laurels. The Hollywood detective. That's where I started.
[4:20] Tell us about one of your early cases that you remember that was particularly interesting. One of the most grave cases I ever handled, Gary, was a young female that ended up living, but her backstory is pretty amazing.
[4:38] She was the executive assistant to Wang Corporation. And Wayne was one of the first commercial-produced computers, word processing computers. And she had dropped her boss off at LAX and was taking his Porsche 925 prototype car back to where their offices were. And while stopped at a light on Sepulveda and 71st, right down the street from the airport, she was rear-ended on a very soft collision from behind. And she got out of the car. She walked back. He exchanged information. And one of the suspects took a gun in her belly. He said, get in the car. They put her back in the car. And for the next two days, they brutally raped, beaten, sold her for rock cocaine. And two days after the fact, they took her to an alley in South Central Los Angeles, dragged her out of the car.
[5:33] One suspect punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. And my other suspect put two bullets in the back of her head with a 38 caliber, um, revolver. Wow. She waited. For a second until she heard the car leave, this woman got up and walked a block and a half to an a.m. p.m. Mini-mart and asked the clerk to call the police. And then she collapsed. She was saved by surgery. For the next literally 20 hours, we worked this case day and night. We ultimately found both suspects.
[6:09] And to hear this woman testify on a stand about what it was like having these two bullets shot in the back of her head is the most chilling, sad thing that I think I've had. To this day, I talked to her like it happened yesterday. She was an amazing woman. And the ironic part about this, Gary, is she wasn't married at the time. And after everything had happened, and I only stayed in contact with, I probably handled 50 of my own murders and not 100 total. And you lose back in the 70s and 80s and early 90s. Man, this place, there was 1,200 murders in the city of Los Angeles by themselves. So you didn't get to stay in contact with a lot of people. But I did with her for a couple of years. Then eventually I lost contact. Both the suspects were found guilty. Sentenced of 480 some odd years each in prison. Four years ago, Thanksgiving Eve, I got a call. And I'm sure you can attest to this or feel for this. It was a male, a young male. And he said, are you Don Tabak? And I said, yeah. And he goes, were you the detective that handled my mother, Carol Lepac's shooting? And my hair, like right now, the hair on my head is standing up. I went, I did. Who are you? And he goes, my name's Ryan Narai, and I am Carol's son.
[7:25] And like, whoa, wait, what? So this was 33 years after this case had happened. She had passed away about a year before this, so three, four years ago. And Ryan wanted to find out exactly what had happened to his mother. She only articulated parts of what she called the event. And he wanted to find out. She became a conservationist up in Montana and divorced the husband. and it was just her and her son for a number of years. So Ryan came out to Los Angeles, a wonderful kid, looked almost exactly like his mom as I remember her.
