Harbison Canyon

A hearing was held Wednesday over a complaint by the jury deliberating the murder charge against Herman (Rock) Kreutzer that the defendant and his wife had followed them around.

Bailiff Paul Parris told San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Perry Langford that the foreman described three contacts by Kreutzer with jurors, who were in their seventh day of deliberations Wednesday.

Kreutzer, 48, is charged with fatally shooting his son-in-law, James Spencer, 32, on April 11, 1984, on the Big Oak Ranch in Harbison Canyon.

“They felt Mr. Kreutzer had been approaching them,” Parris said in court.

“They just felt it was happening too often and they were trying to maintain their separateness,” the bailiff said.

Parris said jurors saw Herman Kreutzer appear twice near where they were eating lunch. No words were apparently spoken by Kreutzer to them, however.

The third incident occurred when Lynne Kreutzer, 35, was crying in a courthouse restroom and said something about the case when a juror was in the same restroom. Parris said Lynne Kreutzer may not have known the juror was there.

Langford told Kreutzer’s attorney, C. Logan McKechnie, to talk to the Kreutzers about the incidents and counsel them.

Though the judge did not issue an order to the Kreutzers about the matter, Langford remarked at the end of the hearing that “nothing more better happen.”

Afterwards, Herman Kreutzer said he didn’t remember eating near the jury in the federal courthouse cafeteria or in The Gavel restaurant, where the contact allegedly occurred.