Persistent Father Finds Suspect in Son’s Death : Crime: A grieving man’s investigation convinces police that son’s death was not an accident. Officers arrest a transient.

Skeptical of the police conclusion that his son’s death was an accident, a grieving father conducted his own investigation that led to the arrest of a 37-year-old transient on suspicion of murdering the son by injecting him with heroin.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in San Fernando Superior Court for John Bird on charges that he murdered Rocco Froio, 32, with an injection while Froio was asleep or unconscious.

Authorities said Bird’s arrest was due to the efforts of Froio’s father, Richard Froio, 50, of Los Angeles, who launched his own campaign to uncover the truth about the death of his son, an alcoholic who lived on the streets.

Rocco Froio’s body was discovered on Aug. 18 in bushes near Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards in Studio City. After an autopsy revealed that Froio had died of a heroin overdose, Los Angeles detectives ruled the death accidental and closed the case.

But his father had suspicions. Although he had trouble with drugs in the past, Rocco Froio had not used any for seven years, said Detective Charles Barnes. Barnes said the coroner’s report found only one puncture mark and no sign of any recent drug use.

Richard Froio posted a sign near the place his son’s body was discovered, asking for information about his death.

He received several phone calls from homeless people who said Bird had injected Froio with heroin while the man was asleep or passed out, drunk. Richard Froio talked to a witness on the phone and in person, then took the information to the police, who arrested Bird on Oct. 21.

“He was very dedicated and instrumental in the case,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Guadalupe Y. Gonzalez, who is prosecuting the case.

“The sign kept getting knocked down and he would pass by it and put it up again. He wandered around and talked to people, asking them if they knew his son. He was trying to reconstruct his son’s last moments.”

Richard Froio was in San Fernando Court Thursday, waiting for the preliminary hearing--which was postponed--but he declined to comment on his investigation of his son’s death. Rocco Froio has a widow and three children who are deeply saddened by the death, he said.

Barnes said police are investigating the possibility that Bird wanted Froio dead because Froio had overheard comments linking Bird to criminal activity. Barnes would not elaborate.

Bird was charged with murder and with the sale and transportation of heroin. The key witnesses in the preliminary hearing are expected to be three homeless people who were at the scene of Froio’s death.

But Gonzalez said she did not anticipate problems with her witnesses.

“I don’t think their credibility should be impaired because they are at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale,” she said.

If Bird is convicted on both counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life in prison.