Defender Cites Examples of Martyrs in Asking Jury to Save Edwards’ Life

Using examples of martyrs and mass murderers, a defense attorney asked an Orange County jury Monday to spare convicted child killer Thomas F. Edwards and fix his time of death as “the one set by his Maker.”

The prosecutor, demanding the death penalty, recounted evidence showing how Edwards planned his crime, stalked his random victims in a remote wilderness area, shot them without warning or reason and coolly evaded capture for nine days.

For a third time, a jury heard arguments on the proper punishment for Edwards, who fatally shot a 12-year-old girl between the eyes and tried to kill her young companion along a deserted road near a camping area in Cleveland National Forest.

The first jury could not agree on his sentence, and the decision by a second jury to give him the death penalty was thrown out.

Failure of Marriage

Monday, Deputy Public Defender Michael P. Giannini pointed to the absence of prior violence or crimes in Edwards’ life before his Sept. 19, 1981, attack on Kelly Cartier and his murder of her friend, Vanessa Iberri, both of Lake Elsinore.

Edwards was distraught over the failure of his four-year marriage, and the crimes were an “absolute aberration” in the life of a man who had been subjected to “more stress than he could handle,” Giannini said.

“We all do strange things when we reach a breaking point,” Giannini said. “For any of us--who knows where the breaking point is?”

Giannini mentioned a dozen mass murderers who killed without reason, offering a comparison to his client. He compared the executions of Joan of Arc and Jesus Christ--who were condemned when they were deserted by followers--with Edwards, on whose behalf 15 character witnesses testified.

Prosecutor John D. Conley, a deputy Orange County district attorney, mentioned only Edwards.

“He pursued them. He stalked them. He followed them for a long, long time,” Conley said.

Edwards stopped his red and white pickup truck, which he had loaded with guns, near the girls, who were searching for a picnic site off the Ortega Highway in the secluded Blue Jay Campground. Edwards shot Vanessa first, Conley said.

“Vanessa was shot just about between the eyes,” Conley said. Her companion, Kelly, was then struck by a bullet which grazed the side of her head.

“Did Kelly turn to look at Vanessa, and is that what saved her life?” Conley asked.

Giannini had a different interpretation. Edwards shot Vanessa first because she resembled his wife, Lisa, who was 17 when they married. She had divorced him earlier the year of the shooting.

Worked at Shooting Range

At the time of the shooting, Edwards, now 43, was living out of his camper and working as a range officer at the South Coast Gun Club in Irvine.

Although jurors at his first trial found him guilty, they could not agree to give him the death penalty, which led to a second penalty trial with a new jury.

At the second trial, Edwards refused to let any attorneys represent him and presented no defense of his own. That jury gave him the death penalty. But when Edwards changed his mind and asked for a lawyer before sentencing, a new trial was ordered because testimony had been presented without objection which should not have been admitted.

The arguments Monday were before Orange County Superior Court Judge James F. Judge.