Shooter Misled in Hostage Death, Court Told

When a sheriff’s sharpshooter mistakenly shot and killed the manager of a Beverly Hills jewelry store last June, he was acting on erroneous information that the only white man on the scene was the gunman who had taken five employees hostage, the marksman testified Monday.

Deputy Sheriff George Johnson said that not long after he arrived at the Van Cleef & Arpels store on Rodeo Drive at 11:30 a.m. on June 23, he was briefed by the command post that the hostages were two black males and three older white females.

Actually, only one of the hostages was black.

Twelve hours later, after two hostages were dead and gunman Steven Livaditis was trying to flee with the three others--a black man, a woman and manager Hugh Skinner--Johnson was still unaware that Skinner, who was white, was in the group, the deputy testified.

“You were never told there was a white male hostage?” Livaditis’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael Demby, asked the witness.

“No sir,” Johnson replied.

Johnson’s testimony came in a day-long preliminary hearing in Beverly Hills Municipal Court. At its conclusion, Judge Charles D. Boags ordered Livaditis, 22, to stand trial on charges that he murdered three hostages, including Skinner, and 12 other felony charges.

Ordeal of Horror Retold

Earlier, the defendant sat with his head bowed as the two surviving hostages recounted their 13 1/2-hour ordeal in chilling and nearly identical detail after identifying him as the man responsible for it.

Both witnesses said security guard William Richard Smith, 54, was killed after he upset Livaditis by a taunt. “‘If you didn’t have a gun, you wouldn’t be so tough,”’ saleswoman Carol Lambert quoted Smith as telling Livaditis.

“He got a knife . . . and he came over and stabbed him (Smith) in the back,” Lambert testified. Although she had been ordered to turn her head, she said, “I could hear him dying,” she said.

Lambert, 42, burst into tears when she described the execution-style killing of Ann Heilperin, who had waited on Livaditis only to find a .357 magnum pointed at her. The defendant was angry with her “because she screamed (and) set the chain of events into motion,” the witness said.

Later that afternoon, Heilperin, 40, was forced to “scoot across the floor on her behind” and lie down next to Smith’s body. Livaditis, she said, answered the phone, put it down, and then, “I heard a shot.”

“He told someone on the phone that the gun had misfired,” Lambert said.

Both witnesses said Livaditis had numerous telephone conversations throughout the day and evening with a Beverly Hills police officer they referred to as “Bob.” They also said that they themselves talked to police at various points and kept them apprised of what was happening inside the store.

The store’s shipping clerk, Robert Taylor, 60, said that after Smith and Heilperin were killed, he pleaded with a police officer by phone to remove the police presence from the street.

“ ‘The jewelry’s all insured,’ ” Taylor said he told the officer. “ ‘We have two people dead. It’s no sense in all of us dying.’ ”

Hostages Tied Together

The survivors said it was Skinner who developed the plan for the group to leave the store covered by a makeshift drape. The three hostages were tied together.

As the group was making its way to a Skinner’s company car, police set off flash grenades to stop them. Lambert and Livaditis suffered burns as a result of the grenades.

When the smoke cleared, one man had become separated from the others, Deputy Johnson testified.

“When I ascertained he was Caucasian that immediately led me to believe he was the suspect,” Johnson said. His spotter yelled that the man, who turned out to be Skinner, was carrying “a shiny object.”

Johnson himself never saw a gun, he testified, but as he trained his scope on the man, “at that point I was positive he was the suspect.”

Taylor, although he testified without emotion most of the time, had harsh words for the police. He recalled that an officer suggested that Livaditis leave the jewelry store to be interviewed by a television crew across the street. The gunmen had asked several times to be interviewed inside the store.

Called ‘Stupid Idea’

“That was a pretty stupid idea, as far as I was concerned,” Taylor said. “If someone told me something like that, I’d be mad, too.”

Lambert refrained from directly criticizing police, although she emphasized that Livaditis’ frustration mounted as police refused to accede to his demands.

“He was angry because they hadn’t done what he asked them to do,” she said.

An attorney who said he represented Lambert and Taylor told reporters outside the courtroom that he would file a $5-million claim today in their behalf against the City of Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The attorney, Harold Vincent Sullivan of Inglewood, said he will argue that police “failed to follow the proper tactics” in dealing with the siege. A similar claim was filed last June by relatives of Skinner.

No Comment by Block

Through a spokeswoman, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block declined to comment on Monday’s testimony, citing the legal claims.

“In light of the pending litigation it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the proceedings today,” Deputy Willie Miller said. “He reported all known facts as soon as they became known to him. It would be inappropriate for him to make any further comment at this point.”

Beverly Hills police officials were unavailable for comment.

The day after the siege, Block and Beverly Hills Police Chief Marvin Iannone told reporters that police had thought Livaditis was bluffing when he said he killed two hostages because he had made other contradictory statements.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dona Bracke, who is prosecuting Livaditis, said Beverly Hills police told her they did not believe Skinner when he told them Heilperin had been killed. She said the psychologist advising them pointed out that Skinner was speaking in “such a monotone” that the gunman might have forced him to make his statement.

Livaditis, who faces the death penalty, is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 25 in Santa Monica Superior Court.