Murder Charges Filed in Ambush of Officer

Daniel Steven Jenkins was accused by prosecutors Wednesday of being the masked man who gunned down Los Angeles Police Detective Thomas Williams last week hours after the officer gave testimony that helped convict Jenkins on a robbery and assault charge.

Initially, Jenkins allegedly sought to pay $10,000 to have Williams killed before he could testify, but the unnamed hired killer backed out moments before the scheduled hit, prosecutors claimed.

Jenkins shot Williams with a fully automatic assault rifle last Thursday in apparent revenge for the officer’s testimony, prosecutors alleged.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office Wednesday formally filed charges against Jenkins and the three other Los Angeles men he allegedly hired to kill the detective. Each man was charged with one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

Jenkins, 30; Duane Moody, 27; Ruben Antonio (Tony) Moss, 24, and Voltaire Williams, 22, were also charged with three special circumstance allegations that make it possible for prosecutors to seek the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard L. Jenkins, who is not related to the primary suspect, said it had not yet been decided which of the two sentences will be sought during the trial.

The special allegations say that the men killed a policeman, committed a killing as an act of retaliation against a witness in a criminal trial and lay in wait for their victim.

Van Nuys Superior Court Commissioner Patricia Schwartz continued the arraignment until Nov. 15, when the four are scheduled to enter pleas.

All were ordered held without bail. Schwartz will hold a bail review hearing today for all but Jenkins.

Convicted of the earlier robbery and assault charges the day after Williams’ death, Jenkins was ordered held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail. He had been free on $16,000 bail until his conviction on the robbery charge Friday. The other three suspects were arrested Saturday at various locations in Los Angeles.

Detective Williams, 42, a 13-year police veteran and no relation to defendant Williams, was gunned down by automatic rifle fire from a passing car last Thursday as he picked up his 6-year-old son, Ryan, from a Canoga Park church day school. The detective shouted for the boy to duck out of the line of fire. The boy complied and escaped injury. His father died at the scene.

Hours earlier, Williams had testified for the prosecution in San Fernando Superior Court, where Jenkins was on trial on robbery and assault charges in the October, 1984, holdup of the manager of a North Hollywood movie theater. The robbery victim, George Carpenter, supplied the license number of the getaway car, which was traced to Jenkins.

In his testimony, Carpenter identified Jenkins as the man who robbed him at gunpoint as he and theater employee Jim Bruceri sought to deposit more than $4,600 cash at the Valley Plaza branch of the Bank of America shortly after midnight Oct. 14, 1984.

Carpenter testified that Jenkins emerged from a nearby parked car, pointed a handgun at him and demanded that he turn over the money, which was still in the car. When Carpenter said he did not have the money, Jenkins fired a shot at him but missed, Carpenter said. Bruceri then tossed the money from the car, but Carpenter testified that another man who remained hidden in Jenkins’ car yelled at Jenkins, “Shoot him anyway.”

Jenkins fired one more shot at Carpenter before he fled with the cash bag. Jenkins was arrested Oct. 29 by investigators who traced the car to him, Detective Williams testified at the trial. Jenkins was released on bail the day after his arrest, court records show.

Last July 4, in a crime that has never been solved, Carpenter was shot four times by an unidentified assailant as he sat in a bar a few blocks from the theater where he worked. Carpenter survived the shooting, changed his name and moved out of state. But he returned to testify at Jenkins’ robbery trial, which began Oct. 25.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Myron Jenkins (no relation to either the defendant or Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard L. Jenkins) said police detectives requested that defendant Jenkins’ bail be revoked the day after the July 4 attack on Carpenter.

“The problem was that Carpenter had specifically excluded Jenkins as being the shooter (in the bar shooting),” Myron Jenkins said. “It’s just one of those tragic things. . . .”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Sandy Banks, Bob Baker, Jack Jones, Jan Klunder and Janet Rae-Dupree.