Mistrial Declared in Slaying of Ex-Boyfriend by Woman

A mistrial was declared Thursday after a Van Nuys Superior Court jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of acquitting a 25-year-old woman accused of voluntary manslaughter in the June, 1984, shooting death of her ex-boyfriend.

Melody Kay Runyan admitted on the witness stand that she fired four bullets into Lee Owens, 50, after he suddenly appeared in the parking lot of a Van Nuys shopping center and asked to talk to her as she was entering one of the stores.

Runyan contended, however, that she acted in self-defense, fearing Owens would kill her because she had recently moved out of his Van Nuys house and broken off the relationship.

The prosecution asserted that Owens, who was unarmed at the time of the shooting, had an artificial leg and could not have outpaced Runyan. Runyan testified that she attempted to run from Owens when he approached her in the shopping center parking lot but he caught up after she stopped to remove her high-heeled shoes.

After interviewing the panel, which deliberated for 3 1/2 days, Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Greenberg said she had not decided whether to seek a new trial.

Runyan was “very upset” that the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision for acquittal and left the courtroom immediately after the vote was announced, according to her attorney, Deputy Public Defender Mark Kaiserman.

On the day of the shooting, testimony showed, Owens had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge that Runyan brought against him after he pulled out some of her hair in a fight. As a condition of probation, the judge had ordered Owens to stay away from Runyan.

During the couple’s stormy, three-year relationship, Owens often grew belligerent and threatened to kill Runyan, but never actually struck her, Runyan testified. Runyan said she obtained a gun from a friend 12 days before the shooting in order to protect herself from Owens.

Owens’ two daughters, Brenda and Pam, cried outside the courtroom and said they hope the case will be prosecuted again.

“I’m really angry,” Pam Owens said. “He’s gone and she’s still here. If she was so afraid of him, she should have stayed away.”

Greenberg attempted to show during the trial that Runyan repeatedly came back to Owens after fights between them and that he continued to work on her car after she broke off the relationship for the last time.

Point of Law

Several jurors said the panel hung on a point of law that says an individual in danger need not retreat and may, in fact, attack another if he fears for his life and if a reasonable person would react the same way.

Jury foreman George Murray of Chatsworth said that most jurors believed Runyan to have been truly terrified of Owens, but that the two jurors who voted to convict her did not believe that a reasonable person would have shot him.

Murray said many jurors placed much weight on the fact that Owens had been admonished by a judge on the day of the shooting to leave Runyan alone. Until then, Murray said, Owens’ threats amounted to little more than “sound and fury.”