Jury Deadlocks on Death Penalty in Slayings of 4 Alexander Kin

Despite having convicted Darren Charles Williams of four counts of first-degree murder in the 1984 execution-style murders of relatives of former pro football star Kermit Alexander, a jury deadlocked Monday on whether the crime made Williams eligible for the death penalty.

Describing Williams, 26, as the instigator of the murders, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris said he was “strongly in favor” of retrying the special circumstances issue, although he conceded that doing so would require a replay of the three-month trial.

“The killer received the death penalty and we think the man who set him up ought to receive the same penalty,” Norris said.

Last May, Tiequon Aundray Cox, believed to have been the triggerman, was sentenced to the gas chamber.

A third defendant, Horace Burns, is serving life in prison without possibility of parole.

The prosecutor said a special circumstance finding should have been automatic, without necessitating further deliberations once the verdict was reached.

“The fact that they had four murders should have been immediately a special circumstance,” Norris said.

Jurors in the Williams case split 10 to 2 in favor of finding that the multiple murders warranted a sentence of either death or life in prison without parole. Outside the courtroom, they said they believed that there was only one firm holdout on the panel.

Norris said jurors told him the holdout “took offense at my use of the words ‘Nazi storm troopers’ ” to describe the men who broke into the South-Central home of Ebora Alexander, 58, on Aug. 31, 1984, killing her, her daughter Dietra, 24, and grandsons Damani Garner, 13, and Damon Bonner, 8.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dion G. Morrow declared a mistrial on the special circumstances issue and ordered the parties back in court on Jan. 26 for further proceedings.