Jury Recommends Life in Store-Owner Killing

An Orange County Superior Court jury decided Thursday not to give the death penalty to a man convicted of murder for his involvement in a jewelry store robbery in which a man was killed, and a daughter of the victim later thanked the jurors.

“I decided I was going to be happy with whatever decision the jury made,” said Ingrid Bunch, 23, of Los Angeles. “I put my faith in the system.”

After deliberating for parts of two days, the jury returned a verdict calling for a sentence of life in prison without parole for Hans Swaving, 33, of Canoga Park. Swaving was convicted two weeks ago of first-degree murder in the Oct. 19, 1984, killing of Juan E. Suarez during a robbery at his Jewelry Showcase store at Beach and Westminster boulevards in Westminster.

Bunch talked to jurors after the verdict was read to reassure them that she was not upset with their decision. Bunch said later that she would not have been against a death verdict if that’s what the jury had decided. But the life-sentence verdict pleased her, she said.

“I don’t believe in revenge,” she said. “A death verdict would not bring my father back. I just can’t live my life with hate inside me; I just can’t.”

Bunch also praised Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard F. Toohey, who vigorously argued for a death verdict despite her ambivalence.

Toohey argued that Swaving, who has a long criminal history, was a “sophisticated, cold, calculating individual.”

Toohey also argued that Swaving was the leader when he and another man robbed the store.

Tory E. Navey, 24, also faces a murder charge in the case and is scheduled to go on trial this month.

Swaving and Navey were accused of holding up a suburban Salt Lake City pawnshop just two weeks before the Westminster shooting.

Prosecutors have videotapes showing that Swaving and another man cased several jewelry stores in the area before deciding on Suarez’s store.

Swaving and a younger man, both wearing business suits, pointed guns at the jeweler, who was in the store with his wife and a 7-year-old daughter. His wife told police later that she heard a scuffle and that the younger man shot her husband.

Toohey argued that the 38-year-old jeweler struggled with Swaving and that Swaving did not expect his partner to stand by idly during the fight.

Ingrid Bunch, asked if her mother shared her feelings about Swaving’s verdict, said, “She’s just glad that it’s over.”

Bunch has two sisters. She said she would sit down soon with the younger sister, who was in the store at the time of the shooting and explain it to her. She is now 9 years old.

‘He Just Stole’

Defense attorney Larry B. Bruce argued that if Swaving had robbed the jewelry store alone, Suarez would not have been killed.

“Hans Swaving did not kill; he just stole,” Bruce said.

Bruce said jurors told him later that the fact that Swaving did not pull the trigger influenced their decision to favor the lesser verdict but that they also thought he was “not a malignant individual.”

Bruce said that Swaving was pleased and that life without parole is not as stark a sentence to Swaving as it might seem.

Bruce noted: “He has been in prison most of his adult life, and he explained it to me: When you face life without parole, the prison officials don’t wave parole in your face to get you to go along with all their petty rules. A lifer’s prison life can be fairly well laid back.”

Judge James R. Franks II will formally sentence Swaving on April 17.