The Region - News from Aug. 11, 1986

An ex-convict from Louisiana, arrested in 1984 as he was about to flee Los Angeles, was convicted of the first-degree murder of his cousin’s girlfriend and her 11-year-old daughter. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Parker, who heard the case without a jury, found David Hensley, 32, eligible for the gas chamber because the killings occurred after he raped the mother and attacked the daughter. But Deputy Dist. Atty. John W. Ouderkirk said he agreed not to seek the death penalty because Hensley had agreed to waive a jury trial. Joan Harris, 30, and her daughter, Nicole, were stabbed to death in their West 62nd Street apartment March 21, 1984. Sentencing was set for Sept. 12.