Testimony in Killing of Detective : Witness Says Accused Was Near School

A Canoga Park woman said Thursday she saw Ruben A. (Tony) Moss in front of Faith Baptist church school less than an hour before an off-duty Los Angeles police detective was gunned down there Oct. 31, 1985.

Moss, 26, and Daniel S. Jenkins, 32, are being tried in Van Nuys Superior Court on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the slaying of police Detective Thomas C. Williams.

Williams, 42, was killed in a hail of gunfire as he picked up his 6-year-old son from school at 5:40 p.m. His son escaped injury.

Authorities said the detective never had time to draw his gun. He died slumped against the passenger door of his pickup truck after being hit by eight bullets.

Vanessa Smith testified she saw Moss talking to the driver of a late-model, beige Chevrolet stopped in front of her vehicle in the 7600 block of Glade Avenue, where the school is situated.

Smith, who was picking up her son from school, said the car blocked her path on Glade Avenue so she waited behind it for about two minutes. She said she later saw Moss walk to a blue car parked across the street, but she did not see him get in it.

Prosecutors allege that Jenkins fired the fatal shots from the blue car.

Key Witness

Smith is a key witness for the prosecution. She is the first in the trial to place a defendant at the murder scene. But she appeared nervous and confused Thursday, and her testimony contradicted previous statements she made to police and at a preliminary hearing.

On Dec. 12, 1985, about six weeks after the shooting, she picked Jenkins from a photo lineup, which also included a photo of Moss. At the time, she said she saw Jenkins at the school the night Williams was killed.

But, in court Thursday, she said that Moss, not Jenkins, was the man she saw that night. Smith said that Moss had appeared too heavy in the photo to be the man at the school.

At the preliminary hearing, Smith said she could not remember how the man she saw Oct. 31 was dressed. She described the man’s hair style as “close cut” and “natural” in interviews with police.

But, Thursday, she said the man she saw was wearing a dark-blue sweat suit, with a hood on his head.

The trial for Moss and Jenkins is expected to last another six months. If convicted, each could face the death penalty.

Three other men--Duane Moody, 30; Voltaire Williams, 25; and Reecy Cooper, 33--also are charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting. They will be tried later.