Wisecarver Gets 8 Years in Vengeance Killing

A Panorama City man was sentenced Friday to eight years in state prison for the vigilante-style slaying of the man suspected of raping his teen-age stepdaughter.

Raymond Paul Wisecarver, 44, who was found guilty May 29 of voluntary manslaughter in the July, 1986, shotgun killing, could have received up to 13 years.

Deputy Public Defender Mark D. Lessem urged the lesser term, saying that, although he could not condone his client’s actions, others have commended Wisecarver.

“I don’t think there’s a person I’ve talked to about this case who didn’t say, ‘good for him,’ ” the attorney told Van Nuys Superior Court Judge David D. Perez.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Cohen, seeking the 13-year sentence, criticized Wisecarver for taking the law into his own hands and said the victim received a death sentence without benefit of a trial on the rape allegation.

Wisecarver’s 15-year-old stepdaughter reported to police that Edward Shreckengaust, 23, a Reseda nightclub bouncer who was described in testimony as a suspected drug dealer, had raped her in his apartment July 8.

Detectives interviewed the two but decided July 10 not to arrest Shreckengaust pending further investigation. Police said they had some doubts about the girl’s report because she at first had failed to disclose that she and Shreckengaust had used cocaine the evening of the alleged assault.

Although Wisecarver did not take the stand during the trial, he told a friend, Roseanna LaMay, that he borrowed a shotgun and drove to Shreckengaust’s apartment, where he posed as a magazine salesman, carrying the weapon in a suitcase, LaMay testified.

According to LaMay, Wisecarver said he shot Shreckengaust when Shreckengaust answered the door.

Wisecarver was tried on a first-degree murder charge, but the jury convicted him of the lesser count of manslaughter.

Some jurors said they believed that Wisecarver acted in a fit of rage, rather than in a cold, premeditated manner. Others said they focused on testimony from a psychiatrist who concluded that Wisecarver has a “pickled brain” from years of alcohol abuse and cannot control his impulses.

Wisecarver told a probation officer that he has consumed a case of beer daily for 10 years, court records show.

In the same report, Los Angeles Police Detective Patrick Conmay called the verdict “a joke” and the psychiatrist’s evaluation “hocus-pocus.”

Prosecutor Cohen said Friday that Wisecarver did not act out of fury over the rape but waited two days and proceeded only when he became displeased with police.

Wisecarver will be eligible for parole in about three years.