Man Guilty of Acid Attack on Girl

Jack Oscar King was swiftly convicted Wednesday of trying to rape and kill 16-year-old Cheryl Bess, then blinding and disfiguring her with sulfuric acid.

The Superior Court jury of eight women and four men deliberated only two hours before finding King guilty of all eight felony counts involving the Oct. 24, 1984, attack in the Mojave Desert that left the former San Bernardino High School honor student, who now lives in Orange, virtually without a face.

After the verdict was read, Judge Don A. Turner thanked the jury for their efforts in what he called a “difficult” and “emotional” trial.

King, a painter with the San Bernardino County Housing Authority, showed no emotion as a clerk read the verdict before a packed courtroom.

Cheryl was not present to hear the verdict. She was recovering from three hours of surgery earlier in the day at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange in which doctors took a skin flap from her chest for what eventually will be her nose, and continued their efforts to re-create eyelids to replace the ones destroyed by the acid that King poured over her head.

Cheryl’s mother, Norma Bess, said in a telephone interview she was “glad to hear that the jury came to that conclusion.”

“I hope his punishment is stiff, but I think I’ll reserve my feelings for Sept. 11,” she said, referring to the day King is scheduled for sentencing.

Jurors said after the trial that they voted unanimously for King’s conviction on the first ballot.

“I’d say it was virtually unanimous from the beginning,” said juror William Henderson, 56, a retired Air Force colonel from Redlands. “The prosecution put on an overwhelming case. There was very little evidence by the defense in any way to effectively refute it.”

King’s attorney, William Dole of the San Bernardino County public defenders office, had argued that investigators arrested the wrong man and that the real culprit was “still out in the community.” Dole called only one witness and presented his defense swiftly, concluding his closing arguments in a matter of hours Tuesday. He would not comment on the verdict.

Henderson said he and his colleagues were strongly influenced by the way Cheryl “so accurately remembered the important things,” and added, “she’s an incredibly impressive kid.”

King, 65, was convicted of kidnaping, attempted murder, attempted rape, assault with intent to commit rape, assault with a corrosive liquid, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon (sulfuric acid) and forcible oral copulation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dwight Moore, the prosecutor, said King could receive a prison sentence of “about 32 years.”