A Death in the Family

Relatives say Shirley Rizk would call her son a “faggot” in front of his friends, and a neurologist says her “sexually provocative” and abusive demeanor placed too much stress on the boy’s “abnormal” brain. Although the youth is accused of killing his mother, the victim’s behavior has become an important issue in the trial.

Gus and Joyce Van Hove, along with other relatives, friends and neighbors, have shown up daily for five weeks in Van Nuys Superior Court to support the youth accused of murdering their daughter.

He is their grandson, Torran Lee Meier, 17, who is on trial on charges of strangling his mother and trying four times to murder their other grandson. Yet the Van Hoves are there.

The defense, trying to show that Meier was driven to murder by a cruel and sexually provocative mother, has put the dead woman on trial alongside her son.

Attorneys have painted a repellent picture of Shirley Rizk, a discount store department manager who was killed at age 34 in her Canoga Park home Oct. 13.

For nearly three weeks, 18 family friends, neighbors and relatives have testified on behalf of the accused youth. According to these witnesses:

Rizk forced her son to do chores day and night, and sexually taunted him. She constantly berated him in front of friends and neighbors as a “faggot” and “not man enough.”

She wore see-through nightgowns or a T-shirt, displaying what one neighbor termed a “voluptuous” body.

She did housework topless several times in front of her embarrassed son and a young woman who boarded with the family.

The same friends, neighbors and relatives depicted the defendant as a model youth, polite and well-mannered. They testified that he looked after his 8-year-old half brother, Rory Rizk, and worked past midnight without complaint on household chores, mowing the lawn or painting the house, suffering in silence while his mother belittled him in a screeching voice heard throughout the neighborhood.

Brain Abnormality Cited

The defense, apparently hoping to convince the jury that Meier evidenced “diminished capacity,” is arguing that he had a brain abnormality that deprived him of normal outlets for the rage his mother’s conduct induced.

The state’s diminished capacity doctrine allows a defendant to submit evidence that suggests a mental condition, short of insanity, that either absolves the defendant or lessens the degree of guilt. Such a defense usually is used to argue that a killing should be considered manslaughter rather than first- or second-degree murder.

Friends Charged Too

Meier and two friends are accused of wrestling his mother to the floor and taking turns strangling her. The three are charged with trying four times to kill Rory in an effort to cover up the slaying.

Meier and his friends--Richard A. Parker, 24, of Antelope Valley and Matthew A. Jay, 18, of Woodland Hills--are charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of conspiracy. Parker and Jay are to be tried separately after Meier.

The prosecution introduced evidence that the three youths tried three times to get Rory to eat food laced with snail poison before finally tying the boy inside his mother’s gasoline-soaked car, setting the car afire and pushing it off a cliff in Malibu. Rory survived uninjured and testified against his half brother early in the trial.

The defense, led by Deputy Public Defender James H. Barnes, from the outset has offered no testimony to suggest that anyone else killed Rizk, focusing instead on the life led by the family.

Testimony sympathetic to Meier has been buttressed by the constant presence in the courtroom of many of the witnesses, including two of the victim’s three former husbands. Although witnesses are frequently barred from attending a trial in which they are scheduled to testify, the judge has not done so in this case.

Affection Demonstrated

They wait each day for the husky youth to be brought into the courtroom, exchanging affectionate glances with him in the presence of jurors and often complimenting him on how he looks in clothing they bought for him.

Several of the witnesses smiled repeatedly at Meier while testifying. Shannon Thomas, 38, of Woodland Hills, sister of the slain woman, patted Meier’s back as she walked to the witness stand several weeks ago.

Joyce Van Hove of Sylmar, the defendant’s grandmother, is described by friends and relatives as the matriarch of the family. She and her husband, Gus, have taken an active role in his defense.

Often wearing a button that reads, “I Love My Grandchildren,” Joyce Van Hove has been present at every session of the trial, conferring frequently with Barnes.

“Do you realize how hard this is for a grandmother?” she asked, cutting short an interview with a reporter. “I love both of my grandchildren. But Torry needs me now.”

No friends of the victim have been present to offset the show of support by the defendant’s family and friends.

The only voices raised in dissent have been those of Roy J. Rizk, 57, the victim’s second husband, and Rory, who is their son.

The elder Rizk described his former wife as a “typical parent, more boisterous than some and less boisterous than others.” As for the screaming that neighbors and relatives described, Rizk said matter-of-factly: “Her method of communication when she got upset was to yell.”

Rizk and his son were the only members of the family who agreed to discuss their testimony in advance with the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Feldman. Contradicting the defense case, the younger Rizk testified that his mother did not often scream at Meier and that they got along “most of the time.”

Attorneys who have followed the trial agree that the highly visible support of family and friends could create enough sympathy for the defendant that the jury of seven women and five men will accept the “diminished capacity” defense that Barnes apparently has staked out. Barnes declined to discuss his courtroom strategy.

Prosecutor Objects

Prosecutor Feldman has objected strenuously to testimony about Shirley Rizk, contending that it is irrelevant to the question of guilt or innocence. But Judge George Xanthos has ruled that the evidence was acceptable as a basis for psychiatric testimony.

Not until Dr. Donald Trockman, a psychiatrist and neurologist, took the stand did the defense strategy become clear. Trockman testified that Meier’s home life was “extraordinarily stressful,” especially for a youth going through puberty.

Citing testimony about Shirley Rizk’s behavior, he said it is “especially disturbing to young males when their mother is sexually provocative.” Teen-age boys, Trockman said, “want their mothers to be sexually invisible.”

In addition, he said, testimony indicates that Meier’s childhood was “unique in that there was an overbearing amount of criticism, but no evidence of love” from the defendant’s only parent. Meier’s father, Dennis Meier, separated from Rizk shortly after Meier’s birth, but was reunited with his son after the killing and is a regular member of the family support group at the trial.

Meier’s case was “bizarre and unusual because of how consistently well-behaved he was up to the point” of his mother’s death, Trockman said.

Specialist’s Diagnosis

Trockman, a brain specialist, testified that the part of Meier’s brain that reasons and plans ahead is so “grossly abnormal” that the defendant could find no escape as stress built up. Trockman said only one in 100,000 persons in Meier’s age group could be expected to show the low level of activity that Meier’s brain displayed in a computer-assisted, brain-wave test.

In the 24 hours before Rizk’s death, pressures on Meier mounted to the breaking point, the psychologist said, citing court testimony and conversations with Meier, who has not testified.

On the night before her death, Trockman said, Rizk kept her son awake until dawn with a prolonged tongue-lashing, then sent him out at 8 a.m. to mow the lawn.

He said Meier is acutely allergic to freshly mowed grass, which combined with lack of sleep to destroy the youth’s ability to deal with accumulating stress. “He was unable to flee because he was unable to reason,” Trockman said.

The psychiatrist speculated that Meier’s brain began to falter about a year before his mother’s death. He cited the development of a lisp, the onset of twice-daily headaches and a sharp drop in school grades, which previous witnesses said had been almost straight A’s.

Trockman said such brain malfunctions usually are the result of slow brain development and typically disappear in three to five years.

New Test Ordered

In cross-examination, Feldman attacked the defense psychiatrist on almost every point, zeroing in on what the prosecutor contends is the unreliability of the brain-wave test equipment employed by Trockman. Ultimately, Xanthos ordered Meier to submit to another brain-wave exam. The results of that test are expected to be introduced in court this week.

Feldman suggested that testimony from 19-year-old Michael Mendelsohn of Canoga Park had been ignored by Trockman when he advanced his diagnosis that Meier’s act was without premeditation.

Mendelsohn, Meier’s best friend, said that in the month before Shirley Rizk’s death, Meier twice discussed killing his mother. He said the talk included mention of strangling her and pushing her burning car off a cliff in Malibu to make it look like an accident.

Trockman dismissed those discussions as “fantasies,” the same word Mendelsohn used in explaining why he did nothing after his friend talked about killing.

Trockman called the bungled attempts to kill Rory “hastily conceived acts, the sort of thing you would expect of a brain-damaged individual.”

Noting evidence that Parker and Jay participated in not only strangling Rizk but in attempts on Rory’s life, Feldman asked sarcastically whether such brain damage was “contagious.” The prosecutor scoffed at Trockman’s contention that Meier’s lifetime of good conduct indicated that he was irresistibly provoked into murder.

“Doesn’t the existence of any murder suggest there was provocation?” he asked.

Feldman is expected to call a psychiatrist in an effort to counter Trockman’s testimony.

Testimony resumes Tuesday. The trial, which began April 15, is expected to end this week or next.