The State - News from May 21, 1986
A former banker was sentenced to prison by a San Rafael judge for 15 years to life for drowning a prostitute he had tied up in his bathtub. Leslie Arthur Byrd, 40, also was fined $10,000 on his conviction of second-degree murder in the 1985 death of Cynthia Engstrom, 19, at his Marin County home. Marin County Superior Court Judge Beverly Savitt agreed with jurors that the prosecution had not proved first-degree murder beyond reasonable doubt, but she said she believed the murder was premeditated. Byrd, who at the time was a senior vice president of WestAmerica Bank in San Rafael, had offered the woman $500 for an evening of sex and bondage.
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