Troiani Escapes Death Row as Jury Gives Her Life Term

Laura Troiani, convicted of hiring five Camp Pendleton Marines to kill her husband, was spared the gas chamber Monday by a Vista Superior Court jury that sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Troiani, wearing a simple purple dress and a cream-colored sweater, put her head in her hands and cried softly as the jury verdict was read by court clerk Lois Carr. The jury had deliberated for 12 hours over three days.

Geraldine Russell, Troiani’s court-appointed attorney, said her client was “relieved, but still very upset.” She vowed to appeal the conviction.

Russell said the sentence was “appropriate given the facts of this case. We are obviously very relieved that the jury understood this was not a death penalty case.”

The judge had instructed jurors that pity and mercy were appropriate considerations during penalty deliberations.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Walden said he would not second-guess the jury.

“The jury had two choices,” Walden said. “They made a choice. We commend them for being able to reach a decision. Reaching a decision was our most important concern.”

Had Troiani been sentenced to death, she would have been the first woman since 1962 to be put on Death Row. Elizabeth Ann Duncan was executed in 1962 for the murder of her daughter-in-law in Ventura County.

19 Serving Life

State prison officials say there are 19 women now serving sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole at the California Institution for Women near Chino, the state’s only maximum-security prison for women.

Troiani was convicted by the same jury on Aug. 26 of the first-degree murder of Marine Staff Sgt. Carlo Troiani, 37, three years ago. After voting for conviction, the jury then found special circumstances--that the slaying was done by ambush and for financial gain.

Troiani’s husband was lured to a rural Oceanside road on Aug. 10, 1984, by someone telephoning him to report that his wife had car trouble in the area. The victim died of multiple gunshot wounds. Police traced tire marks at the scene to a car owned by Laura Troiani. The car was found near the area where Troiani had been shot. Police also recovered the murder weapon, a .357-caliber revolver.

Prosecutors argued that Troiani, a 26-year-old mother of two, should be sentenced to death because she was the cool and calm gang leader in the plot to murder her husband of five years.

They portrayed her as a manipulative and faithless wife who wanted her husband killed so she could collect $95,000 in life insurance and continue an affair with another Marine. Defense attorneys called witnesses who told of Troiani’s difficult childhood, her broken family, and marital discord.

Two Choices for Jury

After the jury found Laura Troiani guilty of murder, its finding of special circumstances required a second set of deliberations, which began last Wednesday, and left the jury with only two choices: whether Troiani should be executed or sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Troiani’s five co-defendants remain to be tried for first-degree murder. The district attorney’s office will also seek the death penalty for all five.

Troiani’s co-defendants, as well as the victim, were stationed at Camp Pendleton. The five have been discharged from the Marine Corps.

The next defendant to go to trial will be Mark Schulz, the alleged triggerman in the Aug. 10, 1984, murder. Schulz’s attorney, Dan Cronin, says that prosecutors haven’t offered a plea bargain for his client and that Schulz will plead innocent by reason of insanity.

Walden said his office does not plan to plea bargain with Schulz. “He’s the gunman; a jury may view him differently than her (Troiani). We will proceed to trial,” Walden said.

No trial date has been set for Schulz.

Post Trial Motions

Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares ordered both sides on the Troiani case to return to court at 10 a.m. today to schedule a host of post-trial motions. Russell said she will appeal Troiani’s conviction, asking that it be overturned or that the trial be retried, on various procedural grounds.

The jurors were brought into Nares’ courtroom at 11:35 a.m. Monday, passing directly in front of Troiani as they walked to the jury box.

They appeared emotionless, but jury forewoman Linda Mathis’ hands shook slightly as she stood, holding the verdict form. Troiani clasped a tissue and buried her head in her hands as the verdict was read.

Nares then told the jurors they were not required to speak with either the attorneys or the press about their deliberations. Of the 12, only two stayed behind to speak to the defense team and all 12 left the Vista courthouse through a side door, choosing not to talk to reporters who covered the four-month trial.

Russell said outside the courtroom that she chose not to have her client take the stand in her own defense because she was too emotionally strained.

Russell did, however, introduce jailhouse poetry in the penalty phase of the trial that she said was written by her client. The poetry displayed a wistful, mournful tone that prosecutors claimed was contrived to evoke sympathy from the jury without requiring Troiani to withstand cross-examination.

‘Too Immature’

Russell said that the two jurors who spoke to her said they could not bring themselves to invoke the death penalty because of Troiani’s “lack of sophistication, her age, her lack of criminal background, and because she was not the triggerman.”

“It was mostly a matter that they apparently saw her as too immature,” Russell said.

Walden, the deputy district attorney, was unusually quiet after the verdict. Russell, in a prepared statement, again blasted prosecutors for seeking the death penalty in Troiani’s case.

“Some of these jurors started out in May feeling that the death penalty was justified in every first-degree--special circumstances homicide,” the statement said. “However, after hearing the facts, the law and looking into their own consciences, they obviously changed their minds.

“Hopefully this will serve as a beacon for the district attorney’s office in their efforts to determine which homicide cases justify time and expense of a capital prosecution and which do not.”

The press release came out of a file that was marked “Life.” Russell declined to hand out a press release from a file marked “Death.”