Jury Ignores Mother’s Confession, Convicts Son in Murder of Uncle

Despite the dramatic revelation of a tape recorded confession by the defendant’s mother at the opening of the trial, a Pasadena Superior Court jury on Friday convicted a 33-year-old former auto restorer of murdering an elderly relative to collect on his estate.

John Iner Botting of Pasadena was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1984 strangulation of Iner Alvin Thor, his 78-year-old uncle by marriage. The jury found that the special circumstances provision of financial gain as a motive applied in the case, so Botting will automatically receive a sentence of life in prison without parole. He also was convicted of forgery and attempted grand theft.

Botting sat nervously for more than an hour Friday morning as several delays kept the verdict from being read. Afterward, bailiffs quickly escorted him out of the courtroom to a holding cell.

Botting, whose first trial last year ended in a hung jury, has been in custody since his arrest shortly after Thor was killed.

‘I Feel Terrible’

“I can’t believe it,” Botting’s mother, LaVerne Dennis, said in a telephone interview from San Diego, where she now lives. “That’s what I was afraid of. I feel terrible.”

Dennis, 58, did not testify in the trial, but in the interview, she reiterated that she killed her former brother-in-law in self-defense during a drunken argument in Thor’s Pasadena house. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said.

Jurors interviewed outside the courtroom said they did not think Dennis’ confession was credible and said the evidence against Botting, who is 6 feet 4 and weighs more than 200 pounds, was overwhelming.

“The prosecution convinced us that while the mother could have been involved, she could not have done it alone,” said Lynn Day, foreman of the jury. “We felt she couldn’t have done a murder of such brutality. We felt the motive was there and that a lot of planning had gone into it. And we felt the confession was a phony.”

Edited Version

Botting’s attorney, Rayford Fountain, shocked the courtroom in his opening statement, when he disclosed the existence of the taped confession. In an edited version of the tape played to jurors near the end of the 2 1/2-month trial, Dennis said:

“Iner found me and he got mad because I poured out his booze. . . . He called me in around 3 or 3:30 (a.m.), and he kept screaming . . . ‘What’d you do with my booze?’

“He grabbed my hair and pulled me, and we struggled. He’s strong in the hands. I had a (rope) belt and he grabbed it, and I took it away from him and strangled him. . . . I put it (the belt) around his neck to hold him down, and I guess I killed him. I meant to keep him away . . . I didn’t realize I killed him.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry Green, who initially said he was surprised by the disclosure of the confession, said Friday that it ultimately strengthened his case.

“I think the tape was inherently unbelievable,” Green said.

Both Green and Fountain said the case was one of the most unusual ones they had ever tried.

‘Absolutely Shocked’

After the verdict, Fountain said: “I can truly say I was absolutely shocked by the jury. My client was too.”

Fountain said he plans to appeal the verdict, because Judge Lillian Stevens had allowed only 3 minutes and 45 seconds of the 15-minute taped confession to be played to jurors and because the judge had barred the testimony of one of Dennis’ neighbors, to whom she allegedly confessed the killing.

The jury’s verdict was read before Commissioner Robert Axel, who was sitting in for Stevens. Stevens was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Thor, a retired painter who was widowed, was killed on July 8, 1984, in his small house on Del Vina Street in a middle-class Pasadena neighborhood. Dennis and Botting had moved into the house temporarily to care for Thor, who suffered from cancer and several other ailments.

Called to Scene

Because of his age and the state of his health, paramedics called to the scene originally thought Thor had died of natural causes. However, an embalmer who had once served as a part-time coroner, spotted strangulation marks on the corpse and notified authorities.

The day after Thor died, Botting took a will listing himself as Thor’s prime beneficiary to a local attorney for probate. Authorities charged that Botting had tricked Thor into signing a falsified will leaving him the house, which was the bulk of the estate.