Victim Lived in Tustin : Youth Pleads Guilty in Slaying of Minister

A gang member has pleaded guilty to charges that he and two accomplices killed and robbed a Tustin minister at a telephone booth after the he became stranded in South Los Angeles, prosecutors said Friday.

In return for Andre Moore’s guilty pleas Thursday, charges that he shot to death a second man hours after the minister’s slaying will be dismissed at sentencing.

Moore, as part of a plea bargain with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, was expected to be sentenced on March 3 to from 32 years to life in state prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Markus said.

Although Moore, 17, was prosecuted as an adult, the district attorney’s office could not seek the death penalty against him because he was a minor at the time of the crime.

Moore pleaded guilty in Superior Court to the first-degree murder and robbery of David Eugene Thompson, a minister and elder at the Greater Zion Apostolic Church in Santa Ana. Moore also admitted robbing Thompson’s wife, who was not injured in the incident.

Thompson, 27, was killed just before midnight last April 9 when he and his wife drove into a gas station at Slauson Avenue and Broadway after his church bus broke down nearby.

Thompson had gone to a telephone booth to call for help when he was accosted by the three people, who robbed him and his wife of about $30 and shot Thompson in the head as he prayed. The killers then forced Thompson’s wife from the car and drove off with it, prosecutors said.

Hours later, the three allegedly shot to death Leopoldo Salgado, 49, of Los Angeles during an attempted holdup outside a liquor store, Markus said. The defendants also allegedly attempted to rob and kill a friend of Salgado’s in the same incident.

As part of the plea bargain, charges stemming from the Salgado incident will be dismissed against Moore, prosecutors said.

Moore’s co-defendants, Todd Lavera, 22, and Tracy Carter, 18, remain charged in both slayings. They face a pretrial hearing Monday at which Markus is expected to announce whether he will seek the death penalty against them.

Church members and co-workers of Thompson described him as a faithful man who devoted his life to his church and family. At his funeral, which was attended by more than 350 people, he was eulogized as a “God-fearing man” who was killed trying to help others.

Thompson was a mail cart driver who worked the overnight shift at Santa Ana’s central post office on Sunflower Avenue.

He and his wife were among a group of church members who had attended the the 50th anniversary celebration of Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Church in Los Angeles. The church bus had stalled on the freeway when the Thompsons came by in the their car and offered to go and phone for help.

The couple had two children, David Jr., who was 3 at the time of the shooting, and Michael, who was 2.

Times staff writer A. Dahleen Glanton in Orange County contributed to this story.