Detective Slain in Vengeance, Prosecutor Says at Murder Trial

Daniel Jenkins was a greedy killer who decided to eliminate anyone who stood between him and his life style, a prosecutor said during opening statements Monday in the trial of two men accused of slaying a Los Angeles police detective.

Jenkins, 32, and his co-defendant, Ruben A. (Tony) Moss, 26, are charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the Oct. 31, 1985, ambush of Detective Thomas C. Williams, who worked in the Police Department’s North Hollywood Division.

Seventeen bullets from an automatic weapon were fired at Williams as he picked up his son from a day-care center at Faith Baptist Church in Canoga Park, prosecutors said. Williams was struck by eight of them. The boy was not injured.

Police and prosecutors have called the murder an act of vengeance in which Jenkins struck back at Williams for testifying against him at a robbery trial earlier that day. Jenkins was accused of holding up a North Hollywood theater manager while he was dropping of theater proceeds at the Valley Plaza branch of the Bank of America in October, 1984.

Elaborate Plot Alleged

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard L. Jenkins told Van Nuys Superior Court jurors that Daniel Jenkins used a plot “that involved surveillance of the officer, telephone communications, the use of beepers and numerous stolen cars.”

Just a few hours after Williams finished his testimony and jurors began deliberating the case, “this defendant, unable to live according to accepted rules and mores of society, took it upon himself to brutally murder Detective Williams in front of his 6-year-old son Ryan by using a machine gun,” the prosecutor said.

He also told jurors that Jenkins had tried previously to have Williams killed by offering to pay $10,000.

The offer allegedly was made to Alexander Xavier Hunter, who testified in pretrial proceedings that he agreed to kill Williams but changed his mind when he saw the detective walking from the school with his son.

Not in Courtroom

Defendant Jenkins did not appear in court Monday. “He didn’t have appropriate clothing,” Jenkins’ attorney, Howard R. Price, said later. “He would have looked like a bobo.”

Price’s co-counsel, Janet Sherman, said the clothes available to Jenkins on Monday were a grab bag of items. They were selected from five sets of clothing Jenkins has at County Jail, bailiff Ed Harrold said.

Jenkins will be in court Wednesday when an opening statement is made on his behalf, Price said. Opening statements for Moss are scheduled for today.

The two defendants are being judged by separate juries sitting in the same trial. Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann is presiding.

Both men face the death penalty, if convicted.

Attempted-Murder Charge

Jenkins, who was convicted of the 1984 armed robbery of theater manager George Carpenter, also is charged with attempting to murder Carpenter in July, 1985. Prosecutors said Carpenter was eating dinner at Two Guys From Italy restaurant near the theater when he was shot five times, once in the head.

The plot to murder Williams arose “out of a ruthless, bloody, failed attempt on Carpenter’s life,” prosecutor Jenkins said, because the defendant believed Williams was “another important cog in the wheel of the system that was bearing down upon him.”

Three other men--Duane Moody, 30; Voltaire Williams, 25, and Reecy Cooper, 33--also are charged in William’s murder. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for those three, and they will be tried later.

Testimony in the Jenkins and Moss trial is expected to last six months. Prosecutors said they have talked with 206 civilian witnesses and 78 police officers, although not all will be asked to testify.