Prosecution Rests in Teen-Ager’s Trial : Confession Unheard in Mother’s Slaying

The prosecution rested its case Monday in the trial of a Canoga Park teen-ager charged with strangling his mother and trying to kill his half-brother--without introducing a purported written confession detailing the killing.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Feldman announced late Monday to Van Nuys Superior Court Judge George Xanthos that he would call no more witnesses against 17-year-old Torran Lee Meier.

Meier and two friends are accused of murdering his mother, Shirley A. Rizk, 34, in their Canoga Park home on Oct. 13 and then trying to poison and burn to death 8-year-old Rory Rizk to silence him.

Meier, Matthew A. Jay, 18, of Woodland Hills and Richard A. Parker, 23, of Antelope Valley, are each charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of conspiracy. Jay and Parker are to be tried later.

At a preliminary hearing in January, Sheriff’s Sgt. Rene Laporte testified that, after his arrest Oct. 14, Meier described to police in detail how the trio had taken turns strangling his mother and then bungled several attempts to kill Rory.

Hearing on Statement Closed

Meier’s statement apparently was barred from evidence by Xanthos at a hearing two weeks ago that was closed to the press and public.

The judge imposed a gag order on participants in the case, ordering them not to tell reporters covering the trial the subject of the hearing or its outcome.

Before the gag order, participants said that Deputy Public Defender James Barnes had signaled that he would seek to have Meier’s statement barred on grounds that police failed properly to advise the youth of his right to refuse to answer questions.

Standards for advising minors of their rights are stricter than for adults, prosecutors say. Meier is being tried as an adult.

The absence of Meier’s statement to police left a hole in the prosecution case that Barnes unsuccessfully sought to exploit Monday.

Defense Objects to Items

Barnes asked Xanthos to bar as evidence a peanut butter sandwich laced with snail bait, a box of snail bait and a box of rat poison, and three blood-stained towels that police said they found in a Dumpster behind a fast food restaurant on Platt Avenue in Canoga Park.

Police said previously that Meier had told them where to find the items.

But Barnes said Monday that the Dumpster items should be barred as irrelevant to the case because the prosecution had introduced no evidence showing what led police to the trash bin.

“There is no evidence whatever linking Torran Meier to those Dumpster items,” Barnes said.

But Xanthos rejected the motion.

Feldman introduced the Dumpster items to corroborate testimony by Rory Rizk.

The boy said that his brother had tried to coax him three times on Oct. 13 to eat food that tasted bad after he heard his mother screaming, “Torry! Torry!” and walked in on the accused three standing over his mother’s body.

The boy also testified that he saw his brother using towels to wipe up what he described as a dark stain from the floor of his bedroom on the night of his mother’s slaying.

Rory said that, later that night, the trio placed him and his mother’s lifeless body in a car, set it afire and pushed it down a steep hill in Malibu.