A Mother Weeps as Son’s Video Tells of Robbing to Help Her

A judge took notes and a mother wept quietly in North Municipal Court on Thursday as they watched a videotape of former Harvard University student Jose Luis Razo telling police that he was sent by God and had robbed to help his mother in a time of need.

“I am the way; I am the truth; I am the light,” Razo told La Habra police detectives Michael Moore and Bobby Wyse in an interview videotaped last July at police headquarters. “God has sent me to change this world.”

Razo, who turned 21 Thursday and read birthday cards while handcuffed to his courtroom chair, had emerged from a humble La Habra barrio to become a standout football player and student at Servite High School in Anaheim before going on to Harvard. He was recruited by several top universities across the country and received thousands of dollars in financial aid from Harvard.

Charged With Robberies

The 6-foot, 200-pound linebacker would have been a junior this fall, but last July he was charged with committing 13 armed robberies in Los Angeles and Orange counties during school vacations since December, 1985.

His preliminary hearing, which will determine whether there is enough evidence to try him, is now in its fifth week.

Razo’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender James S. Egar, has spent much of the hearing in exhaustive questioning of Moore about Razo’s confessions to him and Wyse in July. Egar said he showed the interview tape because he wanted Municipal Judge Arthur D. Guy Jr. “to see the state of mind this kid was in” when he confessed to the robberies.

The tape, Egar said, showed that Razo “was going through some tremendous mental changes from hour to hour and even minute to minute.”

And the case against him, he said, “in large part . . . is going to turn on this young man’s mind.”

While Egar hoped the tape would help his client’s case, it made the day emotionally wrenching for Razo’s parents, Guadalupe and Jose, both of whom were in court Thursday and had never seen the videotape.

A religious couple--their parish priest was in the courtroom Thursday morning engrossed in private prayer--they listened as their son spoke of divine revelations he had experienced, of buying drugs for himself and his friends, of holding up restaurants and markets to buy things for his family.

Egar, who has maintained close contact with Razo’s family throughout their ordeal, said he had never seen Guadalupe Razo as hurt as she was after watching the tape.

The videotape is about an hour long; much of it is of poor quality and barely intelligible and includes two interviews with La Habra police on July 6 and July 7.

In the first interview, Razo tells in detail how he committed some of the robberies. During most of the interview Razo appears to be calm, but on several occasions he can be seen hunched over in his chair, arms folded across his chest and facing the floor.

At one point in the interview, when a thick file of police reports with Razo’s name on it is brought into the room, Razo throws his head back and laughs and says: “That’s funny as hell.”

On a few occasions, he can be heard telling the investigators that he has an appointment to keep and must go. “Call me in the morning; I’ll be home tomorrow,” Razo says.

At the end of the interview, when Razo is placed under arrest, he says, “I’m (expletive) walking. . . . You guys did me wrong.”

In the second interview the following morning, Razo at first claims to have no memory of talking about the robberies the night before.

“I told you about robberies?” he asks the detectives. “You heard that from my mouth?”

When the detectives ask Razo for permission to search his room, Razo tells them that they “have no right to doubt me. . . . I trust you. At this point in my life, you guys are my friends. Guy-o and my little brother are not my friends.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans, who is prosecuting the case, said Razo may have been referring to an accomplice in some of the robberies when he mentioned the name Guy-o.

He had told police that a friend named Guy had backed out on a planned robbery of a Wendy’s Restaurant, Evans said.

Evans, conceding that psychoanalysis is “not my area,” said he thought Razo may have been feigning his bizarre behavior after confessing to the robberies.

“It’s hard to carry a 3.0 at Harvard,” Evans said. “I’m sure he’s rather brilliant. It seems like he knows what he was doing.”

Later in the interview, Razo tells the detectives that they would have robbed, too, “if you were smart enough and you had the (courage) to care for your mother when she was in need.”

“The Lord said ‘Honor thy Father and thy Mother’ and ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill,’ ” Razo says in the videotape. “I honored those two commandments.”

At that point, Wyse pointed out to Razo that another commandment forbids stealing. Razo’s response is inaudible.