Local News in Brief : Ex-Guard Gets Murder Sentence

A former Van Nuys Airport security guard who impersonated a police officer while kidnaping a purported Pacoima cocaine dealer, who was later slaid, was sentenced in Van Nuys Superior Court Friday to 27 years to life in prison.

Terry W. Nelson, 36, pleaded guilty last November to first-degree murder in the shooting death of 36-year-old Gustavo Rojas on May 13, 1983. Nelson and two other men, Northridge mechanic John Sires and Mission Hills house painter Clark Lange, were accused of setting up Rojas for the murder by asking him to deliver drugs to a party.

Police said Rojas rented three apartments in the San Fernando Valley and was notified of pending drug deals by an electronic “beeper” he carried.

According to a probation report, the men forced Rojas off a Van Nuys street and hauled him into a stolen van. Before leaving the scene, the men showed residents of the area, who had come to investigate the commotion, a phony police badge and told them Rojas was being arrested for drunk driving, the report said.

Children on their way to school in Reseda discovered Rojas several hours later when they heard groans coming from the parked van, said Deputy District Atty. Stephen Baron. Rojas died at Tarzana Hospital four days later.

Prosecutors originally said they would seek the death penalty against Nelson, who they believe was the gunman in the slaying. But Baron said charges of kidnaping, robbery and joy riding were dropped in exchange for Nelson’s guilty plea to the first-degree murder charge.

“Based upon his lack of a criminal background, the chances of getting the death penalty or even life without possibility of parole were remote,” Baron said.

Nelson will become eligible for parole in 13 years and six months, Baron said.

Sires, 23, is awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder, robbery and kidnaping. Lange, 22, pleaded guilty in September to robbery and kidnaping, but has not yet been sentenced.