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Femmes fatales occupy a hallowed niche in literary Los Angeles, from Raymond Chandler's classic morality tales to Michael Connelly's hard-boiled whodunnits.
But even a noir master like Connelly - whose The Concrete Blonde features a dead woman encased in concrete - might have dipped his fedora to the Ice Blonde, the woman found preserved in dry ice in room 966 of the Fairmont Newport Beach hotel last week.
Her name was Monique Trepp, 33, a former cheerleader, stripper and waitress who apparently died of a drug overdose.
The room belonged to her New Zealand boyfriend, Stephen David Royds.
It seems Royds, 46, arrested by police after they found 4kg of cocaine, preserved Trepp in dry ice after her death last April or May.
Royds is being held at the Orange County Jail on $1 million bail. If convicted, he could face 10 years thanks to "sentencing enhancements" after skipping bail on a previous drug conviction.
In a megalopolis where drugs and gangs are as ubiquitous as smog and gridlock (I spent two hours locked down in my apartment last night, along with the rest of the street, while LAPD swat arrested a murder suspect, who never made the news) the Ice Blonde was a welcome diversion.
Trepp's face stared blankly in mugshot style in news reports, a grim counterpoint to Royds' beaten gaze from behind bars.
By the time the couple hooked up, the former cheerleader's face was etched by chronic drug use. Trepp had moved from a Huntington Beach flat to Royd's $300-a-night room, but periodically returned to feed her cats.
"She was very meek, humble, broken down mentally - 100 per cent dependent on him," limo driver Pamela Brown, who chauffeured the couple for $200 an hour during visits to swanky restaurants and estates, told the Orange County Register.
As the story backtracked from the Fairmont, where Trepp was entombed in a plastic Rubbermaid container - amid items that included sex toys, a dancer's pole, night-vision goggles and porch swings - a picture emerged of a druggy affair fuelled by ready money. Investigators who busted Royds say he lived at the hotel for about three years.
The Fairmont is reluctant to discus aspects of the case, particularly why no one discovered Trepp's body sooner. Maids did enter room 966, but as a tenant who paid cash and never drew complaints, Royds apparently kept staff at arm's length.
While Trepp spiralled from pretty Monique Glassman, who lived with her high-school sweetheart, via modeling dreams into drugs and stripping, Royds wrecked a promising downhill ski career, which brought him to the US some 20 years ago.
Police say he started dealing in cocaine. Well liked in local haunts, "Kiwi" splashed around cash, and shot pool at the Classic Q.
Though Royds is not known to New Zealand police, both he and Trepp had criminal histories.
Trepp, who was born in Southern California, jumped bail on drug charges in Colorado. Attorney Mark Rubenstein, who represented Trepp there in 2005, said the amount of drugs was "significant" and bail was posted by a "much older man".
Royds, who has US residency, skipped a six-month sentence for a 2002 California drug conviction.
He also filched the identities of Mel Steven Proffitt, a drug lord played by Kevin Spacey on 80s TV show Wiseguy, and Anthony John Royds, his brother who also lives in the US.
The Royds are estranged.
Trepp's death posed a macabre dilemma for Royds: if he told the authorities, he risked jail for his previous conviction.
Instead, he opted to keep Trepp close, topping up the ice from time to time, a strange ritual of suspension that will give Royds a permanent place in the annals of noir history.
FORMER FRIEND REMEMBERS KEEN SCHOOLBOY WITH A TALENT FOR SKIING
A Queenstown man has recalled battling enthusiastic school-age skier Stephen Royds on the slopes of the South Island more than 30 years ago.
Digs Hargreaves arrived in Queenstown in 1977 after working as an instructor in the United States, and recalls Royds as a young man.
"He was probably still at school then. He and his brother were both very, very good skiers. Our friendship really grew through skiing."
Stephen Royds had always tried hard to beat him at their specialist dual slalom skiing event, as the older man was new to the area, and had a reputation as an instructor in the US.
"He was a very good skier ... he was very keen and he trained a lot."
He said both the Royds boys - Stephen and brother Tony - were "a little bit smart arse", but Stephen was yet to display the bizarre behaviour revealed with last week's arrest.
The Queenstown social scene was quieter in those days, and aside from "a bit of smoke" there was little in the way of drugs, Hargreaves said.
Not that Royds would have consumed them.
"He was too young, and he was too keen on his racing in those days."
But from what Hargreaves has heard, that changed in the years after Royds' arrival in the US.
"I had heard rumours over the years from people who had seen him over there that he could set you up with whatever you wanted."
Hargreaves believed the gruesome discovery that accompanied last week's arrest would be hard for both Royds' Queenstown parents - John and Sally Royds - and his brother Tony, an Aspen-based ski instructor.
"It's sad to see anyone go down that road ... He's obviously going to end up inside for quite some time."
- David Eames
