Livaditis Tells How He Killed 2 Arpels Hostages : ‘I’m Guilty,’ Suspect Says, and ‘I’ll Accept Any Punishment They Give Me’

In chilling detail, Steven Livaditis told how he cold-bloodedly killed a courageous security guard who challenged him and a quiet sales clerk, whom he blamed for ruining his attempt to rob a Beverly Hills jewelry store, according to a jailhouse interview published Monday.

The 22-year-old, Brooklyn-born Livaditis also told the Herald-Examiner that he is guilty of the crimes and that his motive was a grandiose plan to steal about $2 million in jewelry, escape to Australia and buy a yacht, because he felt cheated and “kept getting the short end of the stick in life.”

His attempt to rob the exclusive Van Cleef & Arpels store two weeks ago turned sour almost immediately, Livaditis told an interviewer, when he pointed a .375 Magnum pistol at clerk Ann Heilperin, 40, and she started to scream and guard William Richard Smith, 54, came running.

Angered by what he perceived as police refusal to pull back as ordered and by Smith’s challenging taunt that “you’re really tough behind a gun; I’d like to see you without a gun,” Livaditis was quoted by the newspaper as saying:

“I told everyone to turn the other way. I stabbed him in the back and left the knife in him. He immediately started coughing up blood. He was struggling to get up. Then he falls back. He started squirming around on the floor. All of a sudden he stopped moving. He died.”

He chose Heilperin as his next victim, the suspect said, because police had not responded to his demands and because she had screamed in the beginning and had not helped him during the siege.

Shortly after 5 p.m., he ordered the saleswoman to lie on the floor next to Smith’s body.

“Her eyes were closed,” Livaditis recalled. “She was looking at the wall. I walked up to her. I shot her in the head. I don’t think she knew what was happening.

“I’m guilty,” Livaditis told the newspaper. “I want to plead guilty, because I don’t want this thing to drag on. I’ll accept any punishment they give me. If it’s the death penalty, so be it. I realize that I violated one of the most important laws. I took other people’s lives.”

While police negotiators used the store’s phone in an attempt to coax Livaditis to free the hostages, he alternately claimed that he had killed one of them, then denied it.

Autopsies afterward indicated that Smith and Heilperin died at least eight hours before the 13 1/2-hour siege ended in the death of store manager Hugh Skinner, 64, shot by mistake by a sheriff’s marksman as Livaditis tried to escape. Two hostages survived.

Livaditis will be arraigned today in Beverly Hills Municipal Court on 15 felony charges, including three murder counts and others of kidnaping, false imprisonment and robbery.

After learning of the newspaper interview, Livaditis’ lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Michael Demby, said he will not agree to his client’s announced intentions of pleading guilty and inviting execution. Under the state Penal Code, Demby said his approval is required in a case involving a possible capital case.

Displeasure Expressed

Demby expressed displeasure that a reporter had interviewed Livaditis without getting his lawyer’s permission.

“My feeling is that cases ought to be tried in the courtroom, not in the press,” Demby said. “Maybe the press should look at some of their ethics.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna Bracke, who will prosecute Livaditis, said she too would have preferred that there had been no such publicity, because it creates other issues, such as a possible change of venue.