Vista

Laura Troiani, convicted of arranging her husband’s 1984 murder, has indicated sorrow for the pain she has caused, a jail chaplain testified Thursday.

Kenneth Joseph Finn, chaplain at the County Jail at Las Colinas, estimated that he and Troiani have prayed together about 100 times.

“She said she was sorry for all the hurt and pain,” Finn said.

When asked by Deputy Dist. Atty. Philip C. Walden whether Troiani was expressing remorse about her husband’s death, Finn replied, “Not specifically,” adding that she never discussed her husband’s killing with him.

Meanwhile, one of the five Marines allegedly hired to kill Carlo Troiani, who was 37, was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for trying to smuggle heroin into jail.

Russell Harrison, 22, was convicted by a jury in July of trying to have a single dose of the drug and a needle smuggled to him in the County Jail in Vista inside a pair of pants. He was given 603 days’ credit for time already served in the Troiani case.

An investigation concluded that a woman identified as Debbie Roll, 20, delivered the pants to Harrison’s attorney, Richard Wehmeyer, before the Marine was to appear in court. Wehmeyer gave the pants to jail deputies, who found the drug sewn into the waistband.

Wehmeyer, who knew nothing of the contraband, resigned from the case because of the incident.

The Marines allegedly hired by Laura Troiani to kill her husband, a staff sergeant at Camp Pendleton, face separate death penalty trials later. Harrison is scheduled to be tried after alleged triggerman Mark Schultz, whose trial will begin after the penalty phase of Troiani’s trial concludes.

Jurors convicted Troiani last week of plotting her husband’s death to obtain proceeds from his life insurance policy. In the penalty phase, they must determine whether to recommend to Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares that she be sentenced to death or sent to prison for life.