Opinion ID: 844172
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant’s flight and arrest

Text: Defendant left Los Angeles immediately after the killings, abandoning his car, his motorcycle, his apartment, and virtually all of his possessions. At defendant‘s apartment, the police found ammunition, three handguns, a shotgun, and a box for a .38-caliber Colt handgun, but they did not find a .38-caliber Colt handgun or .38-caliber ammunition. In addition, the police recovered four sets of handcuffs. Later in March 1983, a warrant was issued for defendant‘s arrest. Defendant was apprehended nearly eight years after the killings, following a nationwide broadcast of a televised program detailing defendant and the 8 In 1983, however, a different analyst concluded that some of the prints from the wine glasses were sufficient for matching but did not match Connie, David, Sue, Mike, or defendant. By the time of trial, a different analyst disagreed and concluded that these same prints matched Connie‘s. 12 9 homicides. At the time of his arrest in January 1991, defendant was living in Houston and making a living as a burglar using various aliases. According to the FBI, defendant was a suspect in more than 100 burglaries in the Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York areas. He had undergone plastic surgery to his face, having his nose shortened and a mole removed. Evidence found inside defendant‘s Houston home showed that, a few days after the killings, he had obtained documents instructing how to change his identity, and by the end of the month he had applied for a passport under the name of another person. In April 1991, while at a hearing in a federal court in Houston, defendant tried to escape by kicking out a 10th-floor window. Defendant remained on the 10th-floor ledge for almost 12 hours, threatening to jump, but was eventually coaxed back inside. j. Defendant’s admissions Defendant‘s occasional burglary partner-in-crime, Samuel Sabatino, testified that, before the homicides, defendant told him that Connie had left him, and he ―felt like he was going to kill himself and that he was going to kill her.‖ Several weeks later, defendant admitted to Sabatino that he had committed the killings. According to Sabatino, defendant explained that he broke into Connie‘s home through a skylight and waited for her to come home. When she arrived home, her friend, Sue Jory, was with her. Connie went upstairs, where defendant confronted her. During an ensuing argument, defendant shot Connie. When Jory came upstairs, defendant shot her as well. Defendant told Sabatino he used either a .38- or a .32-caliber weapon and bragged that he hid the weapon under law 9 A videotaped recording of the program was found in a VCR at defendant‘s Houston residence. 13 enforcement‘s ―noses‖ by concealing the gun under some roofing material on the roof of his apartment. Sabatino confirmed that he had suffered three burglary-related felony convictions and was testifying against defendant pursuant to a plea agreement in return for a reduced sentence. Sabatino also admitted that he wanted to ―get even‖ with defendant because defendant had never repaid a $100,000 loan and because defendant had provided information to the FBI that led to Sabatino‘s arrest. Defendant‘s stepmother, Rosemary Riccardi, testified that soon after the killings, defendant admitted to his father that he committed the homicides. Defendant‘s father died in 1986. Rosemary claimed that, in addition to relaying this information in a meeting with an FBI agent only three weeks prior to her testimony, she also had disclosed defendant‘s admission to the FBI during the 1980‘s. She denied writing a story about the killings, but admitted she had expressed some interest in writing about defendant‘s upbringing because she thought it would make an interesting book.