Widow, 5 Leathernecks Accused : Marine Murder Case Developing Slowly

Not unlike the calm before the storm, a battery of attorneys is preparing for perhaps the most logistically complicated murder trial ever to be heard in San Diego County.

When it eventually begins--about two years after the killing--no less than 14 attorneys may be in the courtroom. The defendants include a 24-year-old woman and five Marines she allegedly hired for $500 each to help kill her husband.

The district attorney’s office wants all six put to death in the gas chamber for the ambush killing that occurred Aug. 10, 1984.

The killing itself was not all that spectacular: Marine Staff Sgt. Carlo Troiani, 37, was ambushed and shot to death on a rural road in Oceanside’s San Luis Rey River valley. The district attorney contends that Troiani’s wife, Laura, grew tired of her marriage to him, fell in love with another Marine, and hired him and four others to plot her husband’s death. She was to pay them off with part of his life insurance proceeds and keep the rest of the money for herself.

After three bungled attempts earlier that same week--a car bomb that didn’t go off and two attempts foiled when the Marines lost their nerve--they finally lured the victim late at night to North River Road on the pretext that his wife had car problems, prosecutors say. Carlo Troiani drove up, got out of his car and walked toward his wife’s vehicle as she sat behind the steering wheel, according to the prosecutor’s scenario of what happened.

Two of the Marines were hiding in rushes along the roadway; one of them allegedly shot Troiani once with a .357 Magnum handgun. Troiani, hit in the back, collapsed to the ground, yelled out in anguish to his wife and tried to crawl beneath her car, only to be pulled out by his feet and shot again in the back of the head.

Laura Troiani then went home, where, somewhat later, she called Oceanside police to say she was worried because her husband had not come home. Police did not tell her that they already had found his body--and his still-idling car--because someone at Camp Pendleton had notified military police after overhearing one of the suspects boasting about the killing.

Laura Troiani and the others were arrested within hours.

A family friend testified at the preliminary hearing that when he asked Laura Troiani whether her husband had suffered, she answered, “Not maybe more than two or three minutes.”

Another witness told of hearing one of the suspects boast, after returning to Camp Pendleton that morning, “It was fun,” and, “I liked it.”

“This would be an interesting book for whoever writes it,” one of the defense attorneys said recently as he prepared for the case to go to trial. “Not because the crime was so bizarre, but, you might ask, how could these people be allegedly so stupid?”

Despite the apparent flippant attitude toward his client, he and the other attorneys in the case agree that this is the most complicated case they have worked on. Indeed, the stakes have never been higher.

For each, it is the first time they have had to practice law to save a client from a possible death sentence.

Not in anyone’s memory have so many people been put on trial for a murder in San Diego County, according to the district attorney’s office.

The defendants are:

- Laura Troiani, the victim’s wife of five years.

- Mark J. Schulz, 20, accused of being the triggerman.

- Russell A. Harrison, 20, who allegedly waited with Schulz for Troiani to arrive.

- Russell E. Sanders, 21.

- Kevin W. Watkins, 19. He and Sanders allegedly were waiting at a nearby convenience store while the killings occurred.

- Jeffrey T. Mizner, 21, who was characterized by the prosecution as intent on marrying Laura Troiani and who allegedly was responsible for recruiting the others. Mizner allegedly also was at the convenience store during the killing, caring for Troiani’s two young children.

The two years that will have elapsed from the time of the crime until the time the defendants stand before a jury to be judged might suggest that the wheels of justice move at a snail’s pace.

And, indeed, the district attorney’s office says it is frustrated by how slowly the case has advanced. “Unlike wine, a criminal case does not get better with time,” said prosecutor Phil Walden.

The defense attorneys say that the slow pace more accurately reflects their caution in not moving too quickly when six lives hang in the balance. Delays have been ordered along the way to give the defense more time to bone up on the case; lengthy and technically complicated motions by defense attorneys--and the time necessary for Municipal Judge Luther Leeger to conduct his own research on those motions--have slowed the process; interruptions, even as mundane as vacations and illnesses during the preliminary hearing, brought the proceedings to a standstill, and more time than expected was needed last summer for the Superior Court judge to read the transcripts of the preliminary hearing.

“Imagine all the delays that can occur when just one defendant faces murder charges,” said one attorney, “then multiply that by six.”

The preliminary hearing into the murder allegations began in December and lasted 16 weeks, much of it behind closed doors at the insistence of defense attorneys who argued that publicity about the prosecution’s testimony and evidence might influence future jurors.

The prosecution put 59 witnesses on the stand and presented 56 exhibits in showing it had a case. Leeger, who later characterized the case as “very interesting,” agreed that all six should stand trial for murder in Superior Court. And he said he would not stop the district attorney from asking that “special circumstances” be applied to all six defendants, thereby allowing a death sentence to be imposed if they are convicted. This is a death penalty case, the district attorney’s office says, because all six were involved for financial gain and because they lay in wait to kill their victim.

The trial is scheduled to start on April 7 in Vista before Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares. Because the jury selection process may take weeks, if not months, it is possible the trial itself will not begin until around the second anniversary of the murder.

But starting Nov. 12, a series of pretrial motions will be argued--legal debates that are expected to last five months and which, among other things, will decide what evidence can be admitted, whether some evidence was obtained through illegal search and seizure, whether to allow testimony that the defendants incriminated one another during police interviews, whether the trial should be conducted elsewhere because of all the publicity the case has generated in North County, whether it is fair to ask the death penalty against all six, and whether the defendants should be tried as a group or individually.

“When the stakes are this high, you don’t want to leave any stone unturned, any motion not brought,” said Brad Patton, who represents Watkins.

In the weeks leading up to pretrial motions, defense attorneys have been preparing their arguments and responding to those filed by the prosecutor’s office.

The defense attorneys, for instance, have filed briefs on whether the evidence that was produced by the prosecution during the preliminary hearing supports the charges and can be used in the trial.

The district attorney’s staff responded to the defense briefs with its own 75-page brief, which cited about 150 other cases to support its position on the evidence.

Now the defense attorneys are reviewing those 150 cases to see if they truly are relevant to this case.

Meanwhile, Nares has read the 5,000 pages of transcripts to familiarize himself with the preliminary hearing.

Not the least of the prosecution’s concerns is how to track down the witnesses, including more than 20 Marines who have since scattered around the United States and overseas.

One reason the district attorney’s office put on virtually its entire case during the preliminary hearing is that, should a witness not be found when the trial begins, his preliminary testimony could be submitted instead, attorneys say. Also, witnesses who may claim that they have forgotten their knowledge of the case will be allowed to review their earlier testimony to refresh their memories.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Walden, who heads the Vista office and who helped present the case at the preliminary hearing, said the most difficult part of the case will be showing that the defendants conspired to commit the murder.

“It’s a technical legal concept which can be difficult to understand--not only for judges and lawyers, but especially for a jury of laymen,” Walden said.

But by alleging the conspiracy, he will be able to introduce statements that the defendants made to investigators that incriminate not only themselves but their alleged cohorts, Walden said.

And since a criminal defendant cannot be forced to testify at his own trial, the other defendants’ attorneys will effectively be prohibited from calling the squealer onto the witness stand in their attempt to discredit him and his statement to police. Thus, his damning statements would go unchallenged.

Nares will have three options on how to deal with that touchy issue, according to Larry Burns, who was the district attorney’s chief prosecutor in the case until he changed jobs and became an assistant U.S. attorney.

Nares can instruct the prosecution not to introduce those statements because it is unfair for the defendants being incriminated not to be able to confront their accuser, a co-defendant in the same case.

Or, Nares can order the statements grammatically amended to read in the first person versus the third person. Thus, a defendant’s statement would become “I . . . “ instead of “we . . . “ and references to the other defendants would be dropped altogether.

Finally, Nares could sever the defendants’ cases, ordering them to stand trial separately for the same crime. In that instance, it would not matter if the jury heard testimony that incriminated the other defendants because that jury would not be deciding those other defendants’ fates.

If the trials are conducted separately, one after the other, the last one conceivably would not be heard for another two or three years, Burns said.

There is a sort of hybrid compromise, Burns said, in which multiple juries could be impaneled to sit in on one trial for all six defendants. All the juries would together listen to the bulk of the testimony that relates to all six defendants equally; when testimony is given against one defendant that could have a negative wash-over affect on the others, the other juries would temporarily leave the courtroom. Such a multijury trial would be quicker than six separate ones but would be logistically confusing.

“If the trials are not separated, when it gets to the penalty phase (where the relative culpability of each defendant is considered in selecting appropriate punishment) you’d have six defendants all saying, ‘The other five did it and I didn’t.’ There’d be five defendants bringing out all the bad points of the sixth,” mused Richard Wehmeyer, who represents Harrison. “The prosecution wouldn’t even have to open its mouth. Walden could just shrug his shoulders and smile.”

The separate-trial motions likely will be the last ones decided by Nares before the trial begins.

Among the prosecution’s challenges, the defense says, will be trying to convince a jury that it should sentence six young people, most of them with clean records, to death.

“The D.A. is asking six people to die for one death,” said defense attorney Wayne Gomez, who represents Mizner. “There’s something unfair about that.”

Wehmeyer said: “I can’t imagine a jury bringing back six death verdicts. They’d feel like serial killers.”

And prosecutor Burns agrees that it would be difficult for a jury to sentence a young, baby-faced woman to death.

Walden, however, insists that even though only one person squeezed the trigger, all did so vicariously because they jointly planned the murder and therefore should face the same penalty if convicted.

No one has yet offered to negotiate a lesser plea, Walden said, “and if anyone plans on making us a substantial offer, they’d better do it before we start spending taxpayers’ money to fight the motions and all the other roadblocks that will be thrown out in front of us.”

Each of the defense attorneys says the Troiani case has dominated his professional life, forcing him to turn down other cases that might pay better. (While one of the attorneys is a public defender and gets paid a straight salary no matter what his caseload, the other primary defense attorneys are paid $70 an hour by the county to represent their clients. In addition, because this is a capital offense case, each defendant is entitled to a second attorney, who is paid $60 for each hour he spends on the case.)

“I’m only taking those cases which I can handle in the cracks of this one,” Wehmeyer said. “I’m sure that by the time this case is over, I would have turned away so much business I won’t have any left.”

Daniel J. Cronin, Schulz’s attorney, said, “I’m losing money by handling this case because it’s been so time-consuming. But then, it’s not every day you can get involved in a capital case.”

The six defendants, meanwhile, are in jail, held without bail.

Two of them--Schulz and Harrison--have been accused of sex crimes in separate incidents. Schulz’s trial is under way and Harrison was convicted of his offense, which was reduced to a misdemeanor.

On the other hand, two others are jail trusties. Laura Troiani, who is being held at the Las Colinas County Jail, does laundry chores “in order to make the most of her time,” said her attorney, Jack Campbell. And Mizner is the lead trusty at the County Jail in Vista, where he helps supervise 30 to 40 other trusties, said attorney Gomez.

“It’s good for him. It keeps him busy and keeps his mind occupied so he won’t have to think about all the bad things that are going to happen,” Gomez said.