Jailed Drifter Dies Awaiting Trial in Slaying of His Parents

A 44-year-old drifter awaiting trial for allegedly stabbing and bludgeoning his parents to death in Canoga Park in February died Saturday morning in the prison ward at County-USC Medical Center, 11 hours after complaining of severe stomach pains, authorities said.

Robert L. Spitz, who twice had the murder charges against him dismissed before a Superior Court judge reinstated them in November, had stomach pains Friday night in the Men’s Central Jail, Sheriff’s Deputy Roxanna Schuchman said. He was being held without bail pending a January trial.

Spitz was taken to the hospital at 8:30 p.m., Schuchman said. At 2:30 a.m., he refused doctors’ requests to perform exploratory surgery to search for the cause of the pain, Schuchman said. Spitz died just before 7 a.m., she said.

No Sign of Foul Play

Coroner’s officials planned to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Schuchman said there was no sign of foul play.

During preliminary hearings, prosecutors said Spitz had a history of mental illness and had attempted suicide several times.

Sheriff’s deputies discovered the bodies of Spitz’s parents, Marvin, 69, and Myrtle, 68, in their home on the 24600 block of Kittridge Street on Feb. 27, after the couple’s other son, Harry, failed to reach his parents by telephone for several days.

Investigators later testified that the house had been rigged to blow up, with gas outlets and electric heaters turned up and caps removed from gasoline tanks on two cars in the garage. The couple had been stabbed and bludgeoned, then surrounded by magazines and newspapers, apparently to guarantee that the bodies burned, investigators said.

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

Robert Spitz became a suspect after authorities pieced together a string of subtle clues they said linked him to the slayings. There are no known witnesses.

A neighbor reported seeing Spitz at the house the day before the bodies were discovered and seeing his car parked there for several days around the time of the murders. Traces of the victims’ blood were discovered in a guest room used by Robert Spitz when he stayed with his parents.

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 that magazine pages had been taped over framed pictures inside the Spitz house, and that foil had been affixed to some windows. Relatives said Spitz had done such things previously.

Arrested in Oregon

Spitz was arrested in Portland, Ore., in August. Twice in four weeks judges in Van Nuys Municipal Court concluded that evidence against Spitz was too weak to hold him for trial.

Harry Spitz, who testified against his brother at the two hearings, and one of the defendant’s two sisters attacked the decision of the second judge, saying they feared for their safety if their brother were to be released.

After the second unsuccessful bid to get a trial, prosecutors conceded that their case was based exclusively on circumstantial evidence. But they appealed the decision and, on Nov. 21, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James A. Albracht overruled the lower court decision and ordered murder charges reinstated.

A ponytailed, bearded vegetarian, the defendant was described by his siblings as an extremely intelligent man who was graduated with honors from UCLA in the 1960s and worked for the Peace Corps in Nepal and India. He was widely traveled, they said in an interview after one hearing, and subsisted on government assistance and money from his parents.