A 45-year-old man faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole after a jury convicted him Tuesday of fatally stabbing an elderly Huntington Park couple who were his gardening clients more than two decades ago.
Donald Eugene Phillips is due back in court for sentencing Dec. 12 before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio after being found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances that included a murder during robbery or attempted robbery and multiple murders.
Edna Darrow, 72, and her husband, George, 78, were killed sometime between April 16 and April 19, 1987. There were no signs of forced entry and the bedroom where George Darrow was found, had been ransacked, indicating a possible robbery, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin.
But there were a few clues at the crime scene that would prove crucial decades later to investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's homicide unit and the Huntington Park Police Department. One was the defendant's fingerprint on what appeared to be a newly installed drain pipe underneath the kitchen sink. Another was a description of a unique Toyota 4x4 truck that had been parked outside the victims' home during the week of the murders.
Investigators originally focused on Phillips, but the circumstantial case was rejected by prosecutors, who cited insufficient evidence. In 2006, sheriff's Det. Steve Davis reopened the case and reinterviewed Phillips. He found Phillips' stories inconsistent.
Davis also located two new witnesses, including a friend of Phillips' then-16-year-old girlfriend. The girlfriend, who later had two children with Phillips, was killed in an unrelated murder in 1993. But the friend testified that Phillips' then-girlfriend told her that one night the defendant came home covered in sweat and blood and had an armful of money. He handed her a bloody knife and told her that he had robbed and killed two old people with the help of another man.
During trial testimony, it was revealed that the dead couple had a habit of keeping large amounts of cash in their home. Also, a relative of the slain girlfriend testified that after she asked Phillips where he had suddenly gotten a large amount of cash, he confessed to the crime.
Lewin noted that a knife recovered from the defendant, although testing negative for blood DNA, was consistent with the victims' injuries.
"This was an unbelievably brutal double murder of two elderly people who had always been very kind to the defendant and whose only mistake was having a lot of money in their home and being too weak to adequately defend themselves," Lewin said.
Phillips ended up testifying in his own defense. He argued that he was in Palm Springs at the time of the killings.
ALSO:
L.A. County Counsel Andrea Ordin resigns
Rapper Heavy D dead after collapsing in Beverly Hills
NASA releases video of asteroid hurtling through space
-- Andrew Blankstein (Twitter.com/anblanx)
No comments:
Post a Comment