4-Year-Old Costa Mesa Murder : Inconsistency Assailed in Testimony, Autopsy

The preliminary hearing in a 4-year-old Costa Mesa murder opened Friday with a pathologist offering testimony that the defense said contradicts a key prosecution witness.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Robert G. Richards testified Friday that there were no powder burns on the head or chest of the murder victim, Jeffrey Malloy Parker. Such burns might be expected from a gun fired at close range.

Defense attorney Joel Baruch said that Friday’s testimony undermines allegations by the brother of the defendant. The brother, expected to be a key prosecution witness, has said that defendant Richard Dale Wilson, 46, told him about committing the slaying.

According to Baruch, the brother’s account is but one of several contradictory bits of evidence in the prosecution’s case against Wilson in the 1983 murder.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Doug Woodsmall said the testimony of Dr. Robert G. Richards, who performed Parker’s autopsy, was not “particularly inconsistent” with the case against Wilson.

The testimony Friday opened Wilson’s preliminary hearing in Newport Beach’s Harbor Municipal Court, almost four years to the day that Parker was shot to death on the front porch of his mother’s Costa Mesa home on Aug. 2, 1983.

After just two hours of testimony, Wilson’s hearing recessed until Sept. 10, when Municipal Judge Brian R. Carter will return from vacation.

The prosecution said it plans to call witnesses who testified in April before an Orange County grand jury that Wilson, an accountant, told them four years ago that he had killed Parker, 37. Prosecutors said Wilson’s motive was revenge.

When Parker was killed, he too was facing murder charges. Parker, an unemployed bank note salesman, had been accused of beating to death Wilson’s fiancee, San Francisco socialite Joan McShane Mills, 33, on April 30, 1983, in her Beverly Hills hotel room.

To Obtain Leniency

Baruch maintains that Parker was a drug dealer and a police informant who feared for his life--not from Wilson but rather from associates in the drug world. Their motive was the fear that Parker would give police information about them to obtain leniency in his murder case, Baruch said.

According to Richards’ testimony, the fatal shot struck Parker in the left side of the head and another shot hit him in the right side of the chest. Richards said as “a rule of thumb,” a handgun will leave powder burns on flesh or clothing when fired from within about two feet.

However, Richards also said that whether powder burns show up can depend on the caliber of the gun. Woodsmall said ballistics tests have been inconclusive in determining the caliber of the weapon that killed Parker, and no murder weapon has been recovered.

Wilson’s brother, Okel Wilson of Modesto, and his brother-in-law, Robert Hale of Wilmington, testified before the grand jury in April, leading to the secret indictment.

The men testified that in 1983 Richard Wilson had given them details of how he had murdered Parker. Both men said they initially did not report the conversations because they didn’t believe their relative.

Okel Wilson said his brother told him he had waited in the bushes for Parker to return home, court records showed. Okel Wilson told the grand jury that shortly before midnight Richard Wilson “shot him in the chest, and as Jeffrey Parker went down, Jeffrey says, ‘Please don’t shoot me anymore,’ and he got him by the hair of the head and shot him in the temple.”

Both Hale and Okel Wilson, the prosecution’s primary witnesses, were in court Friday but were not called. They were admonished not to discuss the case with anyone and ordered to return in September.

She Heard 2 Shots

“Their statements are a crock,” defense attorney Baruch said after the court session.

Hale and Okel Wilson dislike Richard Wilson and have fabricated their stories, Baruch said.

“They have a lot of resentment for him--Dick’s a success,” Baruch said. “These people are bitter.”

Sarah Parker, the victim’s mother, testified Friday that the night her son was killed she heard two shots, one fired immediately after the other.

Baruch said Sarah Parker’s testimony is inconsistent with Okel Wilson’s account because there was no time between shots for Parker to have pleaded for his life.

When he testified before the grand jury, Okel Wilson admitted to being an alcoholic and suffering from blackouts and loss of memory.

Baruch said two women will testify that they heard two shots the night of the murder and saw a fleeing automobile as they looked out of the window of their mother’s home on the same street as the Parker house.

The car, which “left in a hurry,” bore no resemblance to the vehicle prosecution that witnesses said Richard Wilson may have driven the night of the shooting, Baruch said.

Wilson remains free on $250,000 bail.