Man, 22, Acquitted of Four South L.A. Slayings in ’84

After less than two hours of deliberations, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury has acquitted a 22-year-old Los Angeles man on murder charges stemming from the April, 1984, shooting deaths of four people in a South Los Angeles home.

A somewhat subdued, but smiling William James Butler, who could have faced the death penalty if convicted, was joyously hugged Friday by his lawyer, Leslie H. Abramson, and by several members of the all-woman jury outside the courtroom after the verdict was read.

“I had faith in my lawyer,” Butler said as he walked out of the downtown County Criminal Courthouse, free after 17 months of incarceration after his arrest.

Butler was one of three defendants charged with the slayings of Rebecca Hood, 45; her son, Derrick, 20; her common-law husband, Travis Clark, 49, and family friend Larry Simmons, 37. The four were killed execution-style in the home they shared in the 4500 block of 4th Avenue.

Plans to Seek Job

When arrested, Butler had been on parole for three months after serving eight months in prison for armed robbery. After the verdict, he said he has not “had time to think” of his future plans, but added that he will look for “any (job) that is paying, as long as it’s a legitimate job.”

In swiftly determining Butler’s innocence, jurors appeared swayed by the lack of credibility of the prosecution’s sole eyewitness, Marcia Cook, 29, a friend of the victims.

“We couldn’t believe her testimony beyond a reasonable doubt. There were too many inconsistencies,” jury Foreman Marie Russell, 51, of Los Angeles, said.

Russell, a financial analyst for an aerospace firm, said Cook’s initial descriptions of the suspect “were too dramatically different from what we could see here in the courtroom.”

Younger, Shorter

Butler was about 10 years younger and several inches shorter than the man Cook initially described to police.

Cook had testified during the month-long trial that three men, including Butler, entered the house late at night when she answered a knock at the door. Cook, who picked Butler out of a police lineup, said she escaped after a struggle in which one intruder held a gun to her head. She said she did not witness the slayings.

Deputy Dist. Atty. George J. Knoke conceded that the case was difficult to prove because of the lack of corroborating evidence. Authorities were also unable to provide a motive, although at the time of the shootings police speculated that the attack was drug-related.

Knoke added, however, that while jurors decided Butler was innocent, “the other two (defendants) are completely different cases.”

Cedric Wayne Scott, 19, and Albert Egger Scott, 20, who are brothers, are to be tried separately on murder charges.