Gang Member Who Killed 5 Gets Death Penalty

Gang member Keith Tyrone (Ace Capone) Fudge was sentenced to death Friday for killing five teen-agers during a 1984 shooting spree at a Southside birthday party that the judge said was “reminiscent of the gangland violence and massacres of the ‘30s.”

“It is difficult to conceive of circumstances that would demonstrate more callousness and indifference to human life,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Cappai told Fudge, 21, who was wearing red shoelaces, a Bloods gang trademark.

He was convicted last August in his second trial of opening fire outside a home on West 54th Street in retaliation against a member of the rival Crips gang. Fudge believed that the other gang member, Percy Brewer, 17, had stolen his car, according to the prosecution.

Using a rifle, Fudge gunned down Brewer, Phillip Westbrooks, 18, and Diane Rasberry, 17. The prosecution believes that a fellow gang member, Fred Knight, killed Shannon Cannon, 14, and Darryl Coleman, 17, but the jury found Fudge responsible for their deaths.

The same jury recommended that Fudge be sent to the gas chamber. The jury in his first trial had deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of conviction.

Competency Hearing Scheduled

Knight, who is awaiting trial, is scheduled to undergo a competency hearing Wednesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick R. Dixon said. The alleged driver of the getaway car, Harold Hall, is slated to go on trial Jan. 22.

During Friday’s hearing, defense counsel Gerald D. Lenoir asked the judge to send Fudge to prison for life without parole “because of his age and lack of criminality in the past.”

But Dixon told Cappai that Fudge deserves the death penalty for killing “totally innocent” people and firing 15 to 20 rounds into the crowd. “Instead of five people killed there easily could have been more,” the prosecutor said.

And a probation report filed with the court shows that Fudge, an 11th-grade dropout who attended six different Los Angeles-area high schools, has a criminal record dating back to age 16.

Before his arrest, he did odd jobs and ran errands in the neighborhood, his mother said. He also reportedly worked as a gardener, handyman and car wash attendant.

Deputy Probation Officer Alexander Peace said that when he tried to interview Fudge in jail last September, the defendant stated: “My people told me not to talk to you. Adios,” according to the report.

Fudge’s mother, Peggy Sue Fudge, attended her son’s trial but was not in court Friday. She told the probation officer that Fudge “had never demonstrated a violent side to her” and asserted that “his involvement was caused by his being too trusting of other people,” the report said.

Fudge’s mother also characterized her son as “very religious” and “too timid to be involved in any sort of violence.”

Never Knew His Father

Fudge, who was born out of wedlock, never knew his father, court documents show. His mother married when he was 3 but then divorced her husband--a development that affected her son “adversely” because “he did not like to be separated from her,” she was quoted as saying.

Peggy Fudge sent her son to Marshall, Tex., to live with her stepmother because “she did not feel that she could get competent child care in Los Angeles,” the probation officer reported.

In imposing sentence, Cappai alluded to Fudge’s nickname of Ace Capone, saying it is “certainly an accurate assessment.”