Suspect Details Execution-Style Slaying of 2 College Students

Testifying under a grant of immunity, one of four men who allegedly kidnaped two college students last September during an auto theft in Westwood described Tuesday how the students were executed in a darkened field off Mulholland Drive.

In a surprise development, DeAndre Antwine Brown, 21, agreed to testify against his three companions after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office offered to drop double counts of murder, robbery and kidnaping filed against him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss, who is prosecuting the case.

Brown, who remains in protective custody, was the first witness called in a preliminary hearing, held in West Los Angeles Municipal Court, for Stanley Bernard Davis, 23; Damon Layte Redmond, 19, and Donald Roy Bennett, 21.

At the end of the hearing, expected to be today, Judge Richard G. Berry must decide whether authorities have presented enough evidence to hold Davis, Redmond and Bennett for trial.

The bodies of Michelle Ann Boyd, 19, a UCLA freshman, and Brian Harris, 20, her boyfriend, were found by police last Oct. 6 in a field just west of the San Diego Freeway, off Mulholland Drive. The couple had disappeared the night of Sept. 30, after Boyd walked Harris from her Westwood apartment to his car. Harris was a student at California State University, Northridge.

In two hours of testimony, Brown, formerly a private security guard at Los Angeles International Airport, told how he and his companions drove to Westwood from South-Central Los Angeles on Sept. 30 to steal a car for use in a planned robbery. The robbery was never carried out.

Boyd and Harris were abducted as Davis and Redmond stole Harris’ 1981 Honda Civic, Brown said. Brown and Bennett waited at Bennett’s truck, which was parked near the Veterans’ Administration cemetery.

After Davis and Redmond picked up their companions, Bennett drove the car onto the freeway, exiting at Mulholland Drive. A young woman, later identified as Boyd, sat in the back seat with Davis, Brown testified. Although Brown said he did not know it at the time, Harris was locked in the trunk.

Shortly before midnight, Bennett stopped the car, at Davis’ direction, near a grassy field adjacent to the Curtis School. Brown said he believed that Davis planned to release the young woman and drive off in the car.

Instead, Brown testified, Davis pulled Boyd from the car and disappeared into the darkness with her. Davis was carrying two guns, a revolver and a 9-millimeter semiautomatic Uzi. The Uzi belonged to Brown and Redmond, who had received it two weeks earlier in exchange for cocaine, Brown testified.

Then, Brown said, he heard sound of someone knocking from the inside of the closed trunk of the car. Only then, he said, did he realize that his friends had abducted a second person.

When Davis returned, Brown testified, he and Redmond went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. A young man, later identified as Harris, got out.

“He had his hands over his eyes,” Brown testified. “He said, ‘I’m not looking, like you said.’

“Stan (Davis) said, ‘Come on, we’ll take you where your girl is.’ ”

Redmond and Davis walked with the young man into the darkness, Brown said.

As Redmond was walking back to the car, Brown said he saw two flashes and two short explosions, which he took for the sound of gunfire.

Didn’t Want Witnesses

When Davis returned, Brown said, “He told me he killed them. He said he didn’t want no witnesses.”

After a meandering trip, first to Bakersfield and then to Barstow, the four men returned to South-Central Los Angeles at about 8 a.m. the following day, Brown testified. He said they abandoned a plan to rob a liquor store in Barstow because it was too crowded.

Later that day, Brown said, Davis told him that Redmond had burned himself while setting the stolen car on fire.

Fingerprints lifted from the burned-out hulk of Harris’ car, discovered behind a Western Auto store at 1669 E. Florence Ave. in South Los Angeles, led the police to the suspects.

In an unusual procedure, Brown’s testimony was videotaped by the district attorney’s office to preserve it in the event he is unable to testify at later proceedings, Giss said.