Man Gets 6-Year Sentence for Strangling Girlfriend

A 23-year-old Granada Hills man was sentenced to six years in state prison Tuesday for strangling his live-in girlfriend last year after she hit him with a wooden baton and threw a large marijuana pipe at him during an argument.

San Fernando Superior Court Commissioner Irwin H. Garfinkel, who last month found Gary E. Hart guilty of voluntary manslaughter for killing 22-year-old Deanna M. Slack, cited Hart’s lack of a criminal record as cause for imposing a less-than-maximum sentence. Garfinkel could have sentenced Hart to 11 years in prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Barshop, who prosecuted the case.

California Highway Patrol officers discovered Slack’s body in Hart’s car on Jan. 28, 1984, when they stopped Hart for erratic driving on the Antelope Valley Freeway. A noose was wound tightly around the woman’s neck.

‘Lost Control’

Hart testified at his trial that he had never had hit Slack before the night he killed her, but that he “lost control” and strangled the woman with his hands when she provoked a fight with him. Hart said he was drunk and that Slack threw cards at him, struck him in the legs with a wooden baton and hit him in the head with a “bong,” a large pipe used for smoking marijuana.

When he realized what he had done, Hart testified, he panicked and wrapped a noose around Slack’s neck in an attempt to make it look as though she had hanged herself.

During Hart’s trial, several witnesses, including Slack’s foster mother, testified that Slack and Hart had a tempestuous relationship and that Slack usually started the couple’s frequent fights.

Hart, who already has gained credit for almost two years in jail, will be eligible for release in about a year, Barshop said.