Accused Tarzana Woman Blames a Burglar : Wife to Be Tried in Husband’s Slaying

A 33-year-old Tarzana woman accused of killing her disabled husband so she could run off with her lover was ordered Thursday to stand trial for murder.

Elizabeth Ozerson has consistently maintained that her husband, Noray, 32, was shot by a burglar about 7 a.m. Dec. 10, while she was out walking her dog, defense attorney Alan Baum said.

But detectives testified during a four-day preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Municipal Court that Ozerson became a suspect in the slaying after making conflicting statements to police, neighbors and friends.

Most damaging, police said, was Ozerson’s repeated insistence in the hours following the killing that she had never fired her husband’s handgun, which is believed to have been the murder weapon but has not been found. She said several times that she did not know how to use a firearm, police and friends testified.

Changed Her Story

But, when a police lieutenant tricked her into thinking that chemical tests showed traces of gunpowder residue on her hands, Ozerson explained that she had fired her husband’s gun into the air in their backyard the night before the killing, according to testimony.

Although the lieutenant had concocted the gunpowder story, later tests did find gunshot residue on gloves that Elizabeth Ozerson had worn the morning of the killing, a firearms expert testified.

Ozerson, an insurance company secretary, told police that she fired the lone shot into the air because she wanted to learn to use a pistol for self-defense, detectives testified. But friends testified that Ozerson later told them she fired it out of frustration with her husband, who, she claimed, had grown depressed over his disability and was talking about committing suicide.

Paralyzed Since 1979

Noray Ozerson, a computer consultant, became partly paralyzed in 1979 when he accidentally shot himself in the head while cleaning his gun, police said. As a result, he walked with a severe limp and used a cane.

Bert Kreisberg, 63, of Studio City testified that he and Elizabeth Ozerson had been carrying on an affair since 1981 and that she had promised to leave her husband and marry him. In fact, Kreisberg testified, she was to have moved out of her husband’s home the morning of the killing.

Ozerson has stated to police, friends and neighbors that she took her dog for a walk the morning of Dec. 10 and returned home to find a stranger standing in her living room.

She remains in custody, in lieu of $500,000 bail.