Drifter Wins 2nd Dismissal in Killing of His Parents

Murder charges were dismissed for a second and apparently final time Thursday in the case of a drifter with a history of mental illness who had been accused of stabbing his elderly parents and rigging their Canoga Park home to explode.

Robert L. Spitz, 44, a willowy, bearded, pony-tailed vegetarian, clasped his hands and lowered his head when the second judge in four weeks concluded that the evidence against him was too weak to hold him for trial.

By state law, if a case is dismissed on such grounds twice, it cannot be refiled unless a higher court overrules the decision. Prosecutors said they will appeal Thursday’s decision by Van Nuys Municipal Judge Robert Wallerstein to a Superior Court judge within 15 days, but they acknowledged that their chances of prevailing are slim.

Eligible for Release

Spitz, who had been held without bail, was eligible for immediate release after the judge’s ruling. Sheriff’s Department authorities quickly blocked his release, however, by invoking a psychiatric section of the state’s Welfare and Institutions Code.

By law, county officials can detain an individual for 72 hours if they believe that he has a mental disorder that makes him a danger to himself or others.

Spitz was transferred Thursday afternoon from County Jail to Mid-Valley Hospital in Van Nuys for a psychiatric evaluation. He has a right to a release hearing within three days.

Spitz’s family claims, and his defense attorney confirms, that he has experienced mental problems for many years and has been hospitalized in psychiatric facilities on several occasions.

But Spitz has denied any involvement in the deaths of his parents.

Spitz’s brother, Harry, who testified against him at the two preliminary hearings, expressed dismay after Thursday’s ruling and said that he and his two sisters are terrified of retaliation for their testimony.

“It’s an incredible miscarriage of justice,” said one of the sisters, Anne Eisenberg. “What do they want dead people to do, get up and testify?”

Prosecutors conceded that their case was based exclusively on very circumstantial evidence.

A neighbor testified that she saw Robert Spitz outside the house Feb. 25--which police believe was the date of the killings--and the next day as well.

It was on Feb. 25, another neighbor testified, that he heard a woman screaming and a man yelling. The sounds appeared to come from the Spitz home, he said.

Police said magazine pages had been taped over framed pictures inside the Spitz house, and that foil had been affixed to some windows, two unusual habits that relatives ascribed to Spitz.

“If I know a guy’s in a house for two days with two dead bodies, I figure he did it,” Mike Carroll, head deputy of the district attorney’s Van Nuys office, said outside court.

But Deputy Public Defender Barry A. Taylor argued to the judge that it was impossible to positively fix the time of death and that Spitz, who periodically stayed with his parents, may have left before the killings.

“The fact that Mr. Spitz may do things that other people consider bizarre and unusual doesn’t make him a murderer,” Taylor said.

The bodies were not discovered until Feb. 27, when Harry Spitz summoned sheriff’s deputies after failing to reach his parents for a few days, according to testimony.

Gas Outlets Turned On

When deputies forced their way into the house, they discovered that gas outlets and electric heaters throughout the home were turned on in an apparent arson attempt, investigators testified. The bodies had been surrounded by magazines and newspapers, apparently to guarantee that the bodies burned, they said.

The gasoline caps of the two cars in the garage had been removed, and a trail of melted candle wax stretched between the vehicles, in what looked like an attempt to set them afire, testimony revealed.

Detectives said it was a stroke of luck that the house and half the block did not explode.

In announcing his decision, Wallerstein used language almost identical to that of Van Nuys Municipal Judge James M. Coleman, who presided at the first preliminary hearing and dismissed the charges Sept. 10.

Both judges said they had a “suspicion” that Spitz may have been the killer, but that the law requires the preliminary hearing judge to find a “strong suspicion” before ordering a defendant to stand trial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ed Consiglio, prosecutor in the case, conceded that the evidence may not have been enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt--the legal standard for a conviction--but argued that it was sufficient to raise a strong suspicion.

In an interview following Thursday’s hearing, Harry Spitz and Anne Eisenberg described their brother as an extremely intelligent man who graduated with honors from UCLA in the mid-1960s and served in the Peace Corps in Nepal and India. He has traveled the world and subsisted for the last several years off government assistance and money from his parents, they said.

Harry Spitz said his parents were “very loving” individuals who never turned their backs on their mentally troubled son.

Another sister testified that, when Robert Spitz stayed at their parents’ home, he would remain closeted in a bedroom during the day and emerge at night after others in the house had gone to bed.

At the first preliminary hearing, Harry Spitz claimed that he overheard his brother threaten to kill their father two years ago after the elder Spitz refused to buy him a ticket to Hawaii. The argument over the airline ticket raged until the day of the killings, he said.

But the judge ruled that testimony inadmissible hearsay.