Woman Sues State Over Son’s Slaying by 2 Parolees

An El Cajon woman whose ailing son was fatally stabbed on New Year’s Eve, 1983, by two California Youth Authority parolees has sued the state for allowing the killers to be released to a halfway house in Jamul before the attack.

In a $500,000 wrongful death claim filed this week in San Diego Superior Court, Virginia Rose Cherry alleges that the Youth Authority should have known that the men who murdered her son, Kenneth Weston Hartford, 26, were too dangerous to be released to the minimally supervised halfway house.

The two convicted in the case, Mark David Andreason and Martin Dexter Drews, both now 20, had a long history of criminal offenses as juveniles. According to court documents, Drews spent six years in a psychiatric hospital in Riverside and had three times before been in the Youth Authority’s custody. Andreason’s checkered past included placement in 102 foster homes.

“Our allegations are that the Youth Authority should have known of their dangerous and vicious propensities and should have at least warned the operator of the (halfway house),” Craig McClellan, Cherry’s attorney, said Thursday.

Defendants Named

Named as defendants in Cherry’s complaint were the Youth Authority, Andreason, Drews, the Charter Grove Psychiatric Hospital in Riverside and Donald Cilch, operator of the halfway house, or “group home,” in Jamul.

Hartford, a janitor who lived with his mother, stood 5-foot-6, weighed 109 pounds, and was described in court records as a “defenseless person.” He had recently had his colon surgically removed, requiring that he carry a plastic bag into which his body wastes drained. He was walking either to or from a movie on the night of Dec. 31, 1983, when he encountered the muscular Andreason and Drews.

The next morning, after Hartford failed to return home, his mother notified authorities. His body was discovered hours later at Cuyamaca Elementary School, which had been closed for the holidays. He had been beaten about the face, was bound and had bled to death from numerous stab wounds.

El Cajon police arrested Drews and Andreason 3 1/2 weeks later. Authorities said the two had been using narcotics and had been boasting to friends that they were responsible for the murder. Drew, who was accused of doing most of the stabbing, was later given a prison sentence of 16 years to life. Andreason was sentenced to 15 years to life.

Both are now serving their prison terms.

In April, spurred by Hartford’s murder, the San Diego County Grand Jury issued the results of a formal inquiry into the operation of the Jamul group home. Although the grand jurors concluded that there was no gross negligence on Cilch’s part, they admonished the Youth Authority for failing to provide Cilch and other group home operators with more adequate guidelines by which to run halfway facilities.

The objective of group homes is to provide room, board and supervision to Youth Authority parolees who have no family or friends to live with while undergoing transition from incarceration to full probation. Operators of group homes are obliged to assist parolees in entering school and job training programs, as well as in getting work. A group home operator is paid $500 to $600 a month for each ward he shelters.

“The philosophy of the state of California is that it is trying to rehabilitate offenders by releasing them,” McClellan said. “Obviously, in this case it was not well thought out or considered. In this case, the Youth Authority simply gave Andreason and Drew to Cilch, who let them run loose.”

Cilch, who has operated a group home for the past 3 1/2 years, said Thursday that he felt sympathy for Hartford and Cherry. He said, however, that he is not paid sufficiently “for me to maintain a good staff.” He conceded that the parolees he takes in get minimal supervision.

Daniel Doyle, the Youth Authority’s chief counsel in Sacramento, said Thursday that he had not seen Cherry’s complaint. However, Doyle said the Youth Authority is protected from such suits under a California law that says that state agencies cannot be held liable for decisions like those involving the releasing of prisoners. The law was upheld in 1980 by the U.S. Supreme Court, Doyle noted.

“A kid goes through an institutional stay and then there comes a point when the institution feels he’s ready to go out, and then the board paroles him,” Doyle said. “The question at that time becomes one of, Where is that kid going to stay? so we put some of them in group homes.

“You’re dealing with human conduct here,” Doyle added. “You can do all of the evaluations you can and there’s still an element of . . . unpredictability.”