San Diego

A Superior Court judge sentenced Steven (Pookie) Ivory, a 21-year-old Southeast San Diego gang member, to life in prison without possibility of parole for fatally shooting a La Jolla woman. A jury on Dec. 13 convicted Ivory of first-degree murder with “special circumstances” but rejected the death penalty in the Jan. 19, 1983, slaying of Madeleine Johnson, 63, a writer of mystery books. Johnson was abducted from her home in La Jolla, locked in the trunk of her car, then killed with a shotgun. Her body was dumped at the Hilton hotel on Mission Bay. As Judge David Gill sentenced Ivory, he said Ivory was “completely without remorse for the victims except perhaps for his own unhappy plight . . . Mr. Ivory’s entire life is a period of aberrant behavior.” The judge also imposed a term of 14 years and eight months to be served before the life term begins for a conviction of the attempted murder, kidnaping and robbery of Robert Thompson. Ivory shot Thompson in the legs in Tierrasanta on Jan. 18, 1983. Judge Gill described Ivory as “a completely amoral, insensitive, uncaring individual” and said the kidnaping and killing of Johnson was “just a typical day in his life.”