Cowell Gets 25 Years to Life in Murder Aboard Aircraft

Larry R. Cowell was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Monday for his role in the murder of his longtime friend Scott Campbell, whose body was dumped into the ocean from a plane.

Judge Donald A. McCartin, who last month found Cowell, 37, guilty of first-degree murder in a non-jury trial in Orange County Superior Court, handed down the sentence after listening to tearful statements from the victim’s parents and sister.

Cowell’s attorneys did not dispute the prosecution’s contention that Cowell was flying the rented plane on April 17, 1982, when Campbell was killed while aboard the plane and his body thrown out from a altitude of 2,000 feet into the ocean somewhere near Catalina Island.

But the attorneys, Jerry Reopelle and Greg Jones, argued that Cowell was only a “semi-willing” participant who was afraid to go against his co-defendant, Donald DiMascio, 35, of South El Monte. DiMascio, who is awaiting trial, has admitted in statements secretly recorded that he strangled Campbell and threw his body from the plane, police say.

The prosecution, seeking to establish that the murder was committed in the course of a robbery--a “special circumstance” that under state law would make Cowell eligible for the death penalty--claimed that Cowell and DiMascio killed Campbell to rob him of a pound of cocaine they thought he was about to sell. Judge McCartin, however, ruled during the trial that there was too much chance that the murder was committed to settle an old score to warrant a finding of a special circumstance.

Cowell, formerly of Anaheim and now a resident of Parker, Ariz., was awaiting trial on an unrelated vehicular manslaughter charge at the time of Campbell’s slaying.

Police believe Campbell, 28, who had once been convicted of voluntary manslaughter in an acquaintance’s death, was a drug dealer.

Cowell and DiMascio were arrested after they told an undercover police informant, in sessions monitored by the police, details of how Campbell died. Both were under the impression the informant was a major drug dealer.

But Cowell and DiMascio differed in their accounts to the informant about who initiated Campbell’s death. DiMascio said Cowell promised to pay him to kill Campbell. Cowell said only that he was scared throughout the whole ordeal, implying that he was afraid of DiMascio, his attorneys claim.

Parents Dismayed

Campbell’s parents, Gary and Collene Campbell, during the trial last month expressed dismay that Cowell was spared a possible death sentence, saying they believe he ordered their son’s death, and that DiMascio was simply a hired killer.

But statements made by DiMascio were not admissible as evidence at Cowell’s trial, and the prosecutors made no mention of any murder-for-hire evidence.

In a statement at the sentencing Monday (permitted under the Victim’s Bill of Rights), Collene Campbell did raise the murder-for-hire issue, but McCartin interrupted her and barred her from discussing any facts not presented at the trial.

The victim’s parents, as well as their daughter, Shelly, 28, all told the court how much they grieve for the victim.

Collene Campbell called Cowell “rotten” and berated him for not letting them know that their nine-month search for their missing son was useless.

It was the Campbells’ search that turned up evidence that got the Anaheim police involved in the case. The Campbells learned that Cowell had rented a plane at Fullerton Municipal Airport the day their son disappeared. They also learned that Cowell had asked others to lie for him about where he had gone in the plane that day.

The police investigation turned up a federal drug informant in North Dakota who had arranged to buy cocaine from Campbell at the time he disappeared. That informant, Greg Fox, eventually came to Orange County and became the informant to whom Cowell and DiMascio admitted committing the murder.

“Every day we have come into this courtroom was like going to our son’s funeral, over and over again,” Mrs. Campbell said through her tears. “What has happened to us should not have happened to the worst kind of animal.”