Accused Gave Her a Ring Matching That of Slain Man, Witness Says

The day after he allegedly killed two people, a friend testified Wednesday, J. D. Adams Jr. gave her a ring matching the description of one stolen during the attacks.

The widow of a Sylmar motel manager killed in the 1982 crime rampage testified earlier this week that Adams took the ring, made from the handle of a demitasse spoon and bearing an inscribed “S,” from her finger shortly before he stabbed both her and her husband.

Clyda Holbrook, 58, was seriously injured during the attack on July 22, 1982, at the Motel 6 where she and her husband, Kenneth, 51, lived and worked. He died at the scene.

During two days of emotional testimony at Adams’ trial earlier this week, Holbrook identified Adams as the man who stabbed her and killed her husband.

Rosalind Mullen, a friend of Adams who lived near his apartment in the same Sepulveda development, testified Wednesday that, the day after the Holbrooks were attacked, Adams gave her a “spoon ring” matching the description of the stolen one. She later lost the ring, she said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Frederick G. Stewart said the attack on the Holbrooks followed a series of robberies and another stabbing killing by Adams, 25, Chester Longmire, 26, and James E. Jennings, 24, in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.

Adams and Longmire are in the second week of their trial in San Fernando Superior Court on charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery and attempted robbery. Jennings was allowed to plead guilty earlier this year to two counts of first-degree murder in return for his testimony against Adams and Longmire.

Because Adams is accused of actually using the knife in all three stabbing attacks, he could be sentenced to death if convicted of the charges against him, prosecutors have said. About three hours before the attack on the Holbrooks, Adams and Jennings allegedly stabbed and killed 54-year-old Joseph Gulvas during a robbery attempt as Gulvas walked home from a Hollywood restaurant.

Longmire, who allegedly drove the getaway car and acted as a lookout while Adams and Jennings attacked the victims, faces the same charges as Adams, but has not been recommended for the death penalty.

In other testimony Wednesday, Ruth Miller, a resident of Ridgecrest, Calif., who was staying at the Motel 6 while on vacation on the night of the robbery, testified that Adams knocked on her motel room door shortly before 3 a.m. on July 22, 1982, asking to use the telephone. She said she slammed the door in his face and later heard sounds of a scuffle next door.

Clyda Holbrook, trembling and frequently dabbing tears from her eyes during her testimony Monday and Tuesday, told how she awoke to the sound of “some sort of a commotion” in the motel’s main office shortly after 3 a.m. on the night of her husband’s slaying.

As she entered the office area, she saw one man standing near the office cash drawer with her husband and another man, armed with “a very long knife,” who grabbed her and ordered her back into the couple’s living quarters.

After stealing valuables from the couple’s apartment and $400 from the cash drawer and a floor safe, the men ordered the Holbrooks to lie face-down on the floor of the office, Mrs. Holbrook testified.

She said one of the men, whom she identified as Jennings, left the room before the other man, whom she identified as Adams, “walked over us.”

“He just walked right on top of us and then he stabbed both of us” in the back, Mrs. Holbrook said.

Kenneth Holbrook died at the scene of a single stab wound in his heart. Clyda Holbrook was hospitalized for 10 weeks with injuries in her liver and a lung. She testified that she still is in constant pain from the attack.

Although Adams’ attorney, Walter Krauss, repeatedly questioned Holbrook about the quality of the lighting during the attack and the manner in which she was shown videotaped line-ups to identify the defendants, Holbrook testified that she had “no doubt” that the man who stabbed her was Adams.

Judge John H. Major has predicted that the trial will last about two months. Two juries are hearing the evidence, one for each defendant, because of the possibility of the death penalty for Adams.