Edwards’ Judge OKs New Trial on Penalty : Prosecutors Will Make Third Attempt to Send Slayer of Girl, 12, to Death Row

Thomas F. Edwards, who has said he wants to die in the gas chamber for the shooting death of a 12-year-old girl in the Cleveland National Forest four years ago, was granted a new penalty trial Monday.

Superior Court Judge James F. Judge appeared to agree with defense lawyers that some prosecution testimony at the last penalty trial in June should not have been permitted.

This will be the Orange County prosecution’s third attempt to send Edwards to Death Row.

“We will never give up on this case,” vowed Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley, the Edwards prosecutor.

Edwards, 41, was convicted of first-degree murder two years ago in the Sept. 19, 1981, slaying of Vanessa Iberri of Lake Elsinore, who was walking with her best friend, Kelly Cartier, 12, along a path at the Blue Jay Campground. Edwards shot the Cartier girl in the head, but she survived to testify against him.

Father Distraught

Frank Iberri, Vanessa’s father, was distraught about the order for a new penalty trial.

“I’ve got to sit there and listen to what happened to my daughter all over again,” Iberri said, fighting tears. “People say it gets easier with time, but it doesn’t. You think it’s easier when her birthday comes around? Or Easter?”

Jurors at Edwards’ first trial could not agree whether to give him the death penalty, which led to a second penalty trial with a new jury. At the second trial, Edwards refused to let any attorneys represent him and put on no defense of his own. That jury gave him the death penalty.

Before the date for sentencing, Edwards asked Judge to reinstate attorneys from the public defender’s office to his case.

Those attorneys immediately began attacking the testimony of Charlotte Tibjlas, who told jurors that Edwards, from his jail cell, tried to get her to help him in plans to murder his former wife and former mother-in-law.

Deputy Public Defender Michael Giannini had successfully kept Tibjlas off the witness stand at the first trial. At the second trial, with no one to object, Judge Judge permitted Conley to call her as a witness.

Unexpected Developments

But there were some unexpected developments Conley did not know about at the time.

One of them was a state Supreme Court decision the day of the jury’s death penalty verdict, which said witnesses could not testify to the defendant’s character background unless it related directly to the crime. Tibjlas’ descriptions of Edwards’ personality appear to be outside the scope of what the Supreme Court will permit, attorneys for both sides said.

Also, the state Supreme Court in recent years has thrown out virtually all testimony from hypnotized witnesses. Tibjlas was hypnotized by a psychiatrist on her own and never told Conley about it.

Deputy Public Defender Richard Schwartzberg said he could not be certain from the judge’s comments Monday which of the two Tibjlas problems caused Judge to order a new penalty trial. Conley was convinced the problem was the character background testimony.

Judge set a hearing for Jan. 13 for arguments from the two sides about whether Tibjlas should even be allowed to return to the witness stand.

One man certain to be there is Iberri, a cook from San Diego, who has attended all of Edwards’ court appearances.

Iberri has accused Edwards of “playing games with the court and all the rest of us.”

If Edwards really wanted to die, as he proclaimed to the court and to friends, why did he insist on bringing back his attorneys to fight for his life, Iberri asked.

“Edwards wants to die? No way,” Iberri said.

It now appears that Edwards does not want to go to the gas chamber.

Schwartzberg said Edwards “has some good feelings about himself now. He still has tremendous remorse and guilt, but he’s learning how to deal with it.” Schwartzberg said he thinks Edwards now wants to live.

No new date for the penalty trial will be set until after the January hearing, attorneys for both sides said.