Trial of Motel Manager’s Murderer : D.A. Calls for Killer’s Execution

Calling J. D. Adams’ killing of a Sylmar motel manager an execution, a prosecutor Wednesday urged a San Fernando Superior Court jury to recommend that Adams be put to death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Frederick G. Stewart, speaking during final arguments in the penalty phase of Adams’ murder trial, called the stabbing of motel manager Kenneth Holbrook a “vicious, vicious killing . . . without any justification, provocation or cause of any kind.”

But defense attorney Walter Krauss asked for “compassion and mercy” toward his client.

‘Show Compassion’

“I’m not asking you to excuse what he’s done,” Krauss said. “Punish him. But I would ask you to show the compassion my client did not show. I trust that you will not take a life without necessity. I think you are better than my client.”

Adams, 26, of Sepulveda, was convicted two weeks ago of murdering Holbrook and critically injuring Holbrook’s wife, Clyda, on the same night in July, 1982, that he and two accomplices, James Jennings and Chester Longmire, both also of Sepulveda, commited six robberies in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

Jennings pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a sentence of 25 years to life. Longmire, tried along with Adams, was convicted of the same counts as Adams but did not face the death penalty because witnesses testified he had acted only as the driver. Longmire’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 4.

Couple Stabbed in Back

During the trial, the widow identified Adams and Jennings as the men who forced their way into the Holbrooks’ apartment at the Motel 6 in Sylmar. After the Holbrooks were ordered to lie on the floor and Jennings left the room, Adams stabbed the couple in the back, Mrs. Holbrook testified. Jennings testified that he later saw Adams wiping blood from the knife believed to have been used in the stabbings.

The jurors who convicted Adams must now decide whether he should be sentenced to the gas chamber or to life in prison without possibility of parole.

In closing arguments, Stewart reminded the jurors that Adams, at age 15, had gunned down an ice cream vendor as the man sold his wares to children at a Pacoima apartment project in 1975.

“What could be more harmless than the ice cream man?” Stewart asked. “Killing the ice cream man is like killing the Easter bunny. . . . It’s unthinkable.”

Claimed Shooting Was Accident

But defense attorney Krauss noted that Adams had said he had shot the vendor accidentally.

Krauss argued that jurors should take into consideration the “abject poverty” that Adams endured growing up as the seventh of eight children.

“What we have to do is not just look at two days in a man’s life,” Krauss said. “None of us can really understand how black people in the ghetto actually live. I don’t think I have the words to make you understand it.”

After describing how Adams’ mother, a widow, tried to raise her children on a $330-monthly welfare check, Krauss cited biblical references to God’s mercy as he asked jurors to spare Adams’ life.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Adams’ fate today.