Alleged Night Stalker Victim : L.A. Deputy Describes Mutilation of Woman

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy graphically described the condition of alleged Night Stalker victim Maxine Zazzara’s mutilated body as the preliminary hearing for suspect Richard Ramirez continued Wednesday.

Another deputy testified that a relative of Mrs. Zazzara speculated that the Mafia might have killed her and her husband Vincent, a pizza parlor owner, over narcotics dealings. However, that testimony was ordered stricken from the record.

As Deputy Russell Uloth described the murder scene in Whittier, several spectators left the courtroom, where Ramirez’s preliminary hearing is under way.

Asked to describe Mrs. Zazzara’s wounds, Uloth said hesitantly: “There was her eyes. There was a lot of blood and disfigurement, and the coroner examined that area and the eyes were missing. . . . There were what appeared to be little indentations, numerous scratch marks, around those eyes.”

Uloth, who examined the body with the coroner’s investigator, said the woman also had been shot and repeatedly stabbed. She was found in the bedroom. Vincent Zazzara was shot in the head on a couch in the den, he said.

Ramirez, who had sat silently through the description, appeared to become agitated, leaned over and whispered to his attorney, Arturo Hernandez, then sat back in his chair.

Moments before Uloth took the stand, Deputy Paul Archambault Jr., the first officer on the scene the morning of March 29, 1985, had said the couple’s son, Peter, told him the slaying might be mob-related. Archambault said Peter Zazzara also told him his father might have been involved in some drug deals gone bad.

The testimony was stricken from the record after Municipal Judge James Nelson sustained Deputy Dist. Atty. Philip Halpin’s objection that the information was hearsay.

Found on Couch

Earlier, Bruno Polo, a Peruvian immigrant who had managed one of Zazzara’s pizza shops, testified in Spanish through an interpreter that he found Vincent Zazzara’s body on the couch and called police, Zazzara’s business partner and Peter Zazzara.

“Did Peter ever discuss that his father may have been involved in narcotics sales?” the attorney asked Polo.

“No,” he replied.

“Did he ever discuss that his father had been in prison for narcotics sales?” asked the attorney.

“No,” Polo said.

“Did he discuss as a possible motive that Mr. Zazzara had been in narcotics sales?” Hernandez asked.

“Not in my presence,” Polo responded.

Police said Vincent Zazzara, 64, and his 44-year-old wife had been dead for at least a day when their bodies were found. They were last seen the night of March 27.

Pastor Testifies

Before Polo testified, a church pastor, Steve K. Browe, said he had seen Mrs. Zazzara at choir practice March 27 and that he was apparently the last one to see her alive.

Polo, apparently the last to see Vincent Zazzara alive, testified that he had dinner with his employer the night of March 27 and went to the couple’s home on the 28th and 29th to deliver cash receipts.

On the first night, he said he found the door ajar and saw lights on in the house but assumed Zazzara and his wife were resting and so he did not go in. He said he dropped the money into a mail slot.

On the second night, he said he found “the door was exactly the same way it had been left the night before. It was half open.”

He said he stepped inside, saw Zazzara’s body on a couch and “observed blood on his nose and shoulder.”

Before Wednesday’s session began, Judge Nelson scolded the prosecutor and defense lawyers for their constant bickering.

‘Try the Case’

“I want you to try the case and not each other,” he told them.

Attorney Hernandez complained that during a conference in the judge’s chambers, Halpin called him “a clown.” Hernandez demanded an apology.

“Mr. Hernandez,” said the judge, “unless you are all very anxious to share the same cell, I would urge you not to use the court record to cast aspersions on each other. So far, the case is going very nicely.”

Besides 14 murders, Ramirez is accused of 54 other felonies in Los Angeles County--the majority of the serial attacks that terrorized Californians last year. The preliminary hearing is to determine if there is sufficient evidence for a trial.

The charges include 5 attempted murders, 7 rapes, 5 acts of oral copulation, 7 of sodomy, 3 lewd acts on children, 2 kidnapings, 19 burglaries and 6 robberies.

In Orange County, he is charged with eight felony counts in the attempted murder of a Mission Viejo man and the rape of his fiance.