HUNTINGTON BEACH : Killer of Postal Carrier Gets 26 Years to Life

A 20-year-old Huntington Beach man who killed a postal carrier was sentenced Friday to 26 years to life in prison.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Jean M. Rheinheimer sentenced Gabriel Deluca for the murder of Ida Jean Haxton, 30, who was the first postal carrier ever killed while on duty in Orange County.

The defense conceded that Deluca, a high-school dropout and part-time student at Orange Coast College, killed Mrs. Haxton, a mother of two boys. But the defense lawyer argued that Deluca had a history of mental illness and was intoxicated on tequila and marijuana when Mrs. Haxton was assaulted. The defense contended Deluca was “unconscious” at the time and had no memory of the January, 1984, slaying.

Prosecutor Bryan F. Brown argued during the trial that Deluca waited for the mail carrier with a baseball bat, intending to rape and then kill her. She was beaten and stabbed numerous times, and her body was found in her post office delivery car, which was abandoned in the parking lot of a Costa Mesa church.

Deluca was convicted in June, 1984. But four months later, Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride ordered a new trial. The judge said he believed that Deluca was guilty but said he had no choice but to overturn the verdict because the defense had not been given a report of observations by a Huntington Beach detention officer who accompanied Deluca on his transfer from the city jail to Orange County Jail.

The prosecution appealed McBride’s action, and last April the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana reinstated the conviction, saying that the prosecutors did not try to hide the report and that it was available to defense attorneys if they had asked for it.

There was no evidence of rape, robbery or other circumstances that would have made Deluca eligible for a sentence of death or life in prison without possibility of parole.