Deputy Intercepts ‘Incriminating’ Letter in Alexander Murder Case

A handwritten letter from one defendant to another that prosecutors called “very incriminating” was introduced as evidence Tuesday in the trial of one of three gang members accused in the murders of four family members of former UCLA and Rams football star Kermit Alexander.

An alert sheriff’s deputy at County Jail intercepted the rambling note written by Horace Burns, one of three men charged with the murders, earlier this month. In its final page, Burns promised co-defendant Tiequon Aundray Cox--who will be tried separately later--that he would “make sure know witness shows up” at Cox’s trial if Cox’s testimony helped set Burns free.

Although misspellings and incorrect syntax make parts of the letter difficult to decipher, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris characterized the letter--and in particular the final page--as being “very incriminating.”

Norris submitted the long note, seized by an alert sheriff’s deputy April 8, into evidence Tuesday in Burns’ trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Lawyers for Burns had no comment. Burns could receive the death penalty if convicted.

‘A Slim Chance’

Burns--along with Cox and Darren Charles Williams--has been charged in the killings of Alexander’s mother, Ebora, 58; his sister Dietra, 24, and his nephews, Damani Garner, 13, and Damon Bonner, 8, in Mrs. Alexander’s South-Central Los Angeles home last Aug. 31. Prosecutors have said the victims were totally innocent and died only because the killers attacked the wrong house by mistake.

In the message, Burns first suggests that he and Cox provide testimony to help free Williams. Later, however, Burns suggests that Burns himself is “the only one that might have a slim chance now,” presumably because witnesses in his murder trial have not identified him as having entered the Alexanders’ house when the shootings occurred.

Since his trial began April 1, witnesses have placed Burns in a van at the scene; co-defendants Williams and Cox, meanwhile, have been identified as having run from the Alexander home into the van moments after the shooting.

Burns wrote to Cox that if he testified that Burns was not in the van and if Burns were released, he would help care for Cox’s family.

Burns continues: “When you come back own appeal I make sure know witness shows up.

“You wont get the gas because you did not plan it. You was doing what you were order.”

Burns did not make clear who issued any orders to commit the killings.

Norris said the letter, parts of which were written on yellow legal paper, was seized by sheriff’s deputy Robert Norris (no relation) immediately after it was handed to Cox by Burns in the Los Angeles County Jail.

Prosecutor Norris said the pair, both under escort, were passing each other in a corridor when the exchange occurred.

Jury to Hear Letter

Despite the objections of Burns’ attorneys in a closed session last week, Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz allowed the letter to be entered into evidence. Norris said he plans to read it to the jury during his concluding arguments.

The letter identifies the co-defendants by the nicknames with which they have been repeatedly identified in court--Burns as “Horse,” Cox as “Fee” and Williams as “C. Dove.” At its conclusion is scrawled the name of the South-Central Los Angeles street gang that police have said the defendants belong to. Underneath the gang name are the words, “Rich an Rollin Mafia Style.”

In various parts of the letter--which Norris said Burns has said he wrote--the 20-year-old defendant speaks of his love for his fellow defendants, his concerns for the welfare of their families and his fears of spending the rest of his life in prison.

“Two of us should spring the one for the one could sue and take care the other two for the rest of are lives. Thats are only hope . . . because my honest opinion is we gone,” Burns wrote.

Burns continued that if one of the defendants were freed, he could help take care of the others’ families through a lawsuit, presumably against the city for false arrest.

Two Witnesses

Although prosecutors have not sought to argue that Burns entered the Alexander house with Williams and Cox, they have presented witnesses who testified that Burns was waiting outside in a van. The witnesses were the two women who drove the three to the Alexander home in the van, not knowing, according to testimony, that the men planned to commit the murders when they arrived there.

Burns suggests that Cox should testify that the women were actually involved in the crime and that Burns “was not in that van at all.”

Once free, he continued, “those bitches family going to suffer for all this.”

Norris said the letter was apparently written within a day of its passage to Cox. In outlining his case, Norris has said he would present testimony that the defendants had gone to the mistaken address to seek revenge for a narcotics related shoot-out.

Defense attorneys, in cross-examination, have presented a new theory that the Alexanders were mistakenly shot by hit men seeking to kill a neighbor of the family to prevent her from prevailing in an unrelated civil lawsuit.