Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Murders of Bobby Hassan and His Son, Eric

Text: On the morning of December 12, 1980, Mercie Hassan left her home at 849 West 126th Street, Los Angeles, to go to work. Residing with her were her husband, Bobby Hassan (an unemployed carpenter who sold marijuana and sometimes cocaine), and their four children. Mercie spoke to Bobby on the telephone between 11 and 11:30 that morning. Bobby normally picked up their 14-year-old son, Eric, from school at noon and brought him home for lunch. Sometime around noon, Elizabeth Moncrief, a nurse working for an elderly woman across the street from the Hassan residence, saw Bobby and Eric return home. Half an hour later, she saw a large gold or cream-colored Cadillac containing 4 Black males, ages 19-25, parked in front of the Hassan home. Moncrief went outside and took a close look at the car. About five minutes later, she saw two of the men get out of the car and knock at the Hassans' door. There was a struggle at the door, and the two men entered. The other two men then got out of the car and entered the house, and someone closed the curtains in the Hassan residence. Later, Moncrief saw all four men leave the house. One was holding a pink pillowcase with something in it; the others were carrying paper bags containing unknown items. Moncrief was able to get a particularly good look at the last man who left the house, a tall man with heavy lips, a scar on his face, and either a chipped tooth or a gap between his teeth. She paid closer attention to this man because she had seen him once in Helen Keller Park, which was just across the street. Mercie Hassan returned home about 3:30 p.m. The house had been ransacked. Part of the lunch she had prepared for Bobby and Eric was on the floor, along with wrapping paper from the children's Christmas presents. Several of the presents were missing, as were some colored pillowcases and a .357-caliber Ruger Security Six revolver. Police, called to the scene, found the bodies of Bobby and Eric Hassan in the bedroom, lying on the bed. Each had been shot once in the head. Bobby's hands were tied behind his back, and three rings and a necklace he customarily wore were missing. Defendant Champion was arrested on January 9, 1981. When arrested, he was wearing a yellow metal ring with white stones and a gold chain necklace that contained a charm bearing half of a king-of-hearts playing card. Mercie Hassan identified the ring and charm as belonging to her husband, Bobby. Latent fingerprints lifted from the Christmas wrapping paper and from a white cardboard box matched defendant Ross's fingerprints. A month after the robbery, Moncrief selected defendant Champion's picture from a photographic lineup, saying he could have been one of the men she had seen at the Hassan house. Three days later she positively identified Champion at a physical lineup at the Los Angeles County jail. She also positively identified him at trial as the fourth man she saw leaving the Hassan home. In addition, she identified a photograph of a brown Buick automobile linked to defendants (see pt. I.A.2., post ) as being the car she had seen in front of the Hassan home. [2] Earlier, at a wrecking yard to which the police had taken her, Moncrief recognized the Buick as the car in question because of a distinctive dent on its right front. On cross-examination, Moncrief acknowledged that at an early stage in the murder investigation she had identified two other men, Benjamin Brown and Clarence Reed, as the men she saw visit the Hassan home, and she had identified their car, a Chrysler, as the one she had seen in front of the Hassan home. Reed and Brown had become suspects in the police investigation because: (1) both were involved in an attempted robbery elsewhere in Los Angeles the day after the Hassan murders, during which Reed was killed; (2) Mercie Hassan identified Brown as a person who had been to her house to buy marijuana from her husband; and (3) Mercie Hassan told police that on several occasions she had answered telephone calls from a person named Clarence who wanted to buy drugs. To show that Reed and Brown did not commit the murders, the prosecution called Brown, who testified that he had spent the day at home, and Reed's employer, who produced a time card (on the back of a cigarette carton) showing that Reed was at work in a grocery/liquor store at the time of the murder. A ballistics expert testified that Bobby Hassan was killed by a.357-caliber bullet with rifling characteristics; the latter are produced by the gun that fired the bullet, and were described by the expert as six lands and grooves with a left hand twist. The expert also testified that most Colt revolvers produce these particular characteristics. The prosecution produced photographs, found in defendant Champion's home, showing each defendant holding a Colt revolver. But Benjamin Brown, when arrested for the attempted robbery that resulted in the death of Clarence Reed, was found in possession of a gun that produced the same rifling characteristics. A jury found defendants Champion and Ross guilty of burglarizing the Hassan home and of robbing and killing Bobby and Eric Hassan.