Judge Orders Man to Stand Trial in Slaying of Convicted Swindler

Philip Dean Fry was ordered Friday to stand trial for the slaying of a convicted swindler whose headless body was found last July in the Angeles National Forest.

Municipal Judge William Froeberg in Santa Ana ruled that there was sufficient evidence to hold Fry for trial in the death of Arthur Lee Evans, the owner of the now-defunct Republic Insurance Brokers Inc., once Orange County’s largest brokerage firm.

Evans disappeared from his Cowan Heights home and was reported missing on July 31 by friends. Fry, at one time Evans’ roommate and employee, allegedly returned after the killing to take Evans’ furniture, but the judge Friday dismissed the robbery charge.

According to Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Goethals, the judge’s ruling was based, in effect, on a theory that too much time had elapsed between Evans’ death and the removal of his belongings for Evans to be considered the victim of a robbery.

Fry’s arraignment on the murder charge has been scheduled for March 6 before Judge Francisco P. Briseno in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Evans had been sentenced to a year in prison and five years of probation for swindling as much as $11 million from 100 investors, but at the time of his death he was out of jail as a result of various legal maneuvers.

At Friday’s preliminary hearing, the judge rejected defense arguments that the dismembered body found in the mountains might not be Evans and that Fry’s alleged confession to a jail informant should be suppressed.