Credibility of Witness Assailed at Slaying Trial

A lawyer for a young man accused of killing his girlfriend’s mother attacked the credibility Tuesday of a key witness, a former jail inmate who said he helped the couple plan the slaying.

William Noguera, 22, of Valinda in Los Angeles County faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder “for financial gain” in the April 24, 1983, bludgeoning death of 42-year-old Jovita V. Novarro of La Habra.

Prosecutors claim that Noguera and the woman’s daughter, Dominique Novarro, killed her because the daughter could gain $25,000 in life insurance. The victim hated Noguera, according to several prosecution witnesses, because he was seeing too much of her daughter.

Jurors in Orange County Superior Court are scheduled to begin deliberations today.

Dominique Novarro, who was 16 at the time, has already been convicted of first-degree murder in the woman’s death and is serving a sentence at the California Youth Authority. She also is charged with being an accessory for refusing to testify against Noguera.

Reportedly Heard Plans

Ricky Abrams, a 21-year-old car thief who testified in both cases, said the three of them planned the woman’s death at a Bob’s Big Boy. Abrams said he never agreed to kill the woman but listened as the other two laid out plans to fake a burglary and rape to throw the police off track.

“Without Ricky Abrams, the prosecution has no case,” said Lorenzo A. Pereyda Jr., one of Noguera’s attorneys, during his closing argument Tuesday.

Pereyda attacked Abrams’ credibility by pointing to his arrest record: three convictions for car theft, one for a purse snatch and another for urinating in public. He also told jurors that Noguera would have no reason to trust someone like Abrams with a murder plan and that prosecutors failed to show that the two knew each other very well.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King argued that Abrams had no motive for lying. Also, King said, defense lawyers could find no inconsistencies between Abrams’ testimony at an earlier hearing and his testimony during the trial.

King also asked jurors how Abrams could have known that the life insurance was for $25,000, if he had not heard it from Noguera and Dominique Novarro.

Jurors listened to more than six hours of closing arguments Tuesday after sitting through two months of testimony.

Testimony Recanted

Noguera testified during the trial that he was home in bed when Novarro was killed and that a friend, Marjorie Noone, crawled through his bedroom window and visited with him for at least half an hour about 3 a.m.

Noone backed up Noguera’s alibi with her own testimony. But the day after she testified, she went to the district attorney’s office and said she had lied because Noguera had threatened to hurt her and her family if she did not.

If Noguera is convicted of first-degree murder alone, he would be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. If jurors find him guilty of murder for financial gain, however, his trial would go into a penalty phase, where he would face either life without parole or death.

King told jurors: “Jovita Novarro got the death penalty because she had money and (because) she saw something happening to her daughter.”