Trial Opens in 1984 Slaying of Woman at Hansen Dam

A man accused of murdering a Venice woman at Hansen Dam in 1984 said shortly afterward that he shot the woman once because a pistol “slipped” in his hand, then fired two more rounds into her head because he thought she might be suffering, the prosecution at his trial said Monday.

The allegations were raised on the first day of trial for Steven Harold Erickson, 32, who is charged with raping, kidnaping and murdering Victoria Winchester, 26, before dawn on July 5, 1984.

Erickson, a sometime North Hollywood resident who was living with a friend in Sherman Oaks at the time of the killing, also is accused of carrying out the killing under special circumstances--that he used a gun, that he killed during a rape and that he killed to prevent the victim from testifying, Knight said. If convicted of killing under the special circumstances, Erickson could be sentenced to death.

In opening statements to a San Fernando Superior Court jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael E. Knight said that Erickson planned the killing after raping Winchester because he feared she would tell police.

“His motive was to kill her so she wouldn’t turn him in for beating and raping her,” Knight said.

Erickson’s attorney, Gerald L. Chaleff, said there was no doubt that Erickson shot and killed Winchester but denied that he raped her or was guilty of the other special circumstances.

Chaleff characterized Winchester as a cocaine and marijuana abuser who used men to get drugs. The killing, Chaleff said, was not deliberately planned but a tragedy that resulted from a night of cocaine and alcohol abuse.

According to Knight, the couple met July 4 and agreed to go to a Santa Monica nightclub that night. They returned early the next morning to Erickson’s mother’s apartment in North Hollywood. His mother was not home, and Erickson armed himself with her semi-automatic pistol, Knight said.

Evidence will show that Winchester tried to escape from the apartment by climbing through a bathroom window but was restrained, threatened, beaten and raped by Erickson, Knight said.

Winchester asked to be taken home, threatening to call authorities, Knight said. Instead, Erickson drove her to the Hansen Dam area, “where he executed her by shooting her twice in the head and once in the chest,” Knight said.

The prosecutor read from the transcript of a statement that Erickson gave to police after his arrest several days later. According to the transcript, Erickson said, “I told her I’d shoot her, and I cocked the gun and when I let go, it went off.”

He pulled back the pistol’s hammer “and it slipped out of my hand,” the transcript quoted him as saying.

In a letter sent from jail to a friend, Erickson wrote that he could see Winchester was shot and “thought that she might suffer a minute or two,” so he fired two more shots into her head.

Her body was discovered by passing motorists about 7 a.m. near a baseball field at Dronfield Avenue and Osborne Street.