Bid for Killer’s Parole Surprises Richardson

The state Board of Prison Terms was openly surprised when a request to parole a double murderer arrived from Sen. H. L. Richardson, the legislature’s leading advocate of getting tough on criminals.

It turns out that Richardson was just as surprised.

“I was shocked when The Times informed my office about the letter,” Richardson (R-Glendora) said Wednesday. “You can bet your life Bill Richardson would not do something like that. What happened was that a staff member of mine, in good faith, sent the letter. I’m not going to sack him because he’s a good man who just made a mistake. But you can be assured that is the last time he will ever do anything dumb like that.”

Richardson declined to identify the staff member who urged the parole board to release George Patrick McKinney from the California Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo, where he is serving a life sentence.

“What happened was that my man has a good friend at church who, in turn, is a good friend of McKinney’s wife. He mentioned the case to me about a year ago, and I told him to check it out. I never heard anything further from him. All I can say after checking McKinney’s background myself is that my man is no Dick Tracy when it comes to checking the facts,” the senator added.

Richardson sought out the facts himself Wednesday, and they were supplied to him by Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. David Coffey, who represented the prosecution at the San Luis Obispo parole hearing where McKinney’s bid for freedom came up last Friday.

“I gave the senator’s office a briefing on McKinney, and I understand that Richardson was aghast about the letter where he seemed to be seeking McKinney’s release,” Coffey said.

Sent to Prison in 1977

McKinney, 58, was sent to prison in 1977 after being convicted of murdering Herbert Chance and his wife, Virginia, Oct. 13, 1975, in their fortress-like Venice home during a $63,000 robbery. He also was convicted of kidnaping the Chances that night from the Nu Way Lounge in West Los Angeles, which they owned.

McKinney’s bid for freedom was denied after the hearing, which was presided over by Albert Leddy, who was noticeably perplexed by the Richardson letter. Asked to comment at the time, Leddy said, “I certainly did not expect that kind of letter from that particular source.”

During his 28 years in the Legislature, Richardson has earned a reputation as its most conservative member and has been a strong supporter of tougher penalties for criminals. He also was one of the earliest public officials to call for the removal of Rose Elizabeth Bird as California chief justice.

Before his conviction for the murders of the Chances, McKinney had spent 22 years behind bars, having served prison terms for robbing banks in New York and Illinois and for passing bad checks in California. At one point, he was on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list. McKinney’s conduct while incarcerated the last nine years has been “clean,” in prison parlance. One exception was an incident earlier this year when he attacked and broke the nose of a fellow inmate he reportedly regarded as a snitch.

The parole board file contains two letters apparently signed by Richardson urging McKinney’s release.

A brief letter recently received from the senator’s office states that Richardson “would like to strongly reiterate” the position he took in a Nov. 6, 1985, letter regarding McKinney.

“As you know, a letter of this kind from me is extremely rare, but again I would like to strongly recommend McKinney be paroled as soon as possible,” the second letter states.

The following is in the 1985 letter over Richardson’s signature:

“My office has reviewed an extensive amount of Mr. McKinney’s file and literally every aspect of that review indicates that parole would certainly be in order.

“I can not speak with absolute certainty about Mr. McKinney’s guilt or innocence, although the peculiar circumstances surrounding the testimony at his trial would certainly indicate that his innocence is a distinct possibility.

“Be that as it may, we are certainly faced with the decision as to whether or not he is a suitable candidate for release into society. A review of the recommendations of staff, both medical and line, seems to overwhelmingly recommend parole. Comparing his background with other inmates, it would seem his chances for success would be far greater than others with violent backgrounds certified for release and who have subsequently disappointed us.”

In addition to the Richardson letters, petitions urging McKinney’s release were submitted with signatures of 1,000 residents of Marin County, where McKinney’s wife, a registered nurse, lives.

The reference in the 1985 letter to the “peculiar circumstances” surrounding the testimony at McKinney’s trial apparently points to the multiple versions of the crimes that co-defendant Jerald Dee Sartain gave to both the grand jury and the trial jury.

“Sartain, who was indicted with McKinney, turned state’s evidence and cleverly concocted his testimony to lessen his role and build up the participation of McKinney,” James Epstein, McKinney’s trial lawyer, said Wednesday.

McKinney took the witness stand and denied participating in the crimes. Epstein told the trial jury that Sartain, not McKinney, had killed the Chances.

.22-Caliber Pistol

But Sartain’s final version to the trial jury had McKinney shooting the Chances with a silencer-equipped .22-caliber pistol.

Sartain, who had served time with McKinney at Leavenworth Federal Prison, said he recruited McKinney to come to California from Illinois for the Chance hold-up. McKinney claimed that he came to see Sartain because Sartain had expressed interest in a restaurant McKinney hoped to open in Springfield, Ill.

In Sartain’s earlier accounts of the killings, he had implicated, instead of McKinney, a man named Anthony Borsellino, described by Sartain as a hit man from Chicago. Borsellino also was indicted in the murders, but Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband subsequently dismissed charges against him “in the interests of justice” when Los Angeles police detectives determined that Borsellino was not in California on the date of the murders.

McKinney’s four-month trial cost $500,000, making it at the time both the longest and most expensive criminal proceeding in the history of Santa Monica Superior Court.