A private investigator testified Monday that exhaustive efforts failed to turn up two people who saw a slain Rancho Palos Verdes woman sign a will.
Paul Ingels, a former Pomona police detective, testified in a nonjury trial to determine whether the will executed by Monica Beresford-Redman should be admitted to probate.
Her body was found in a sewer at the Moon Palace Hotel in Cancun, where she and her husband, former “Survivor” producer Bruce Beresford-Redman, were vacationing in April 2010. The husband has been ordered extradited to Mexico to stand trial in his 41-year-old wife’s death.
Ingels said he and an associate spent parts of February and March looking for Maria Oaxaca and Martha Mendoza, the former nanny and former cook, respectively, for the Beresford-Redmans.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff is presiding over the probate court trial to determine whether the will dated 2008 was properly drafted with two witnesses before moving forward with an expected legal challenge from the slain woman’s sisters. Jeane Burgos and Carla Van Bastelaar say a 2004 will is the one that should determine how their sibling’s property should be distributed.
In a June 2010 hearing, before he was taken into federal custody, Bruce Beresford-Redman testified that he and his wife signed the 2008 document before going to Australia. He testified again in the current trial during a session with attorneys at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he is currently being held.
Bruce Beresford-Redman’s parents, David and Juanita Beresford-Redman, maintain the 2008 document supersedes the earlier will. Ingels was hired by their lawyers to try to locate Oaxaca and Mendoza so they could come to court to testify. Unlike the 2004 will, it would give them title to a home their son and his late wife had in Gardena and would eliminate Burgos as a backup executor to her brother-in-law.
Ingels said he scanned information from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the U.S. Postal Service and from credit sources to try to locate the women. He also said he used a Spanish-speaking assistant to go to two locations in San Pedro and Wilmington where he thought Mendoza might have lived.
“I know for a fact I can’t locate her,” Ingels said.
The investigator said he thought he would have a better chance finding Oaxaca because he had what he thought was her Social Security number. But he said the number turned out to belong to a man in Georgia.
“I can’t find her and she’s using a fraudulent Social Security number,” he testified.
Oaxaca testified during a pretrial deposition that the witness signatures on the 2008 will belonged to her and Mendoza. But when shown Monica Beresford-Redman’s signature, she testified she could not verify it was penned by the slain woman.
In the absence of the testimony of Mendoza and Oaxaca, lawyers for the producer’s parents are attempting to get the 2008 will admitted through the testimony of a handwriting expert, Edwin Hanney. He concluded after an analysis that their daughter-in-law’s signature on the document is authentic.
The Beresford-Redmans’ marriage produced two children, Alec, 4, and Camila, 6, whose paternal grandparents were named permanent guardians after winning a court battle with Van Bastelaar.
