Man Convicted of ’84 Rape, Murder of Woman

A former dog groomer, once described by police as a “one-man crime wave,” was convicted Monday by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury of raping and murdering a Mid-Wilshire area woman in the course of a $15 robbery.

Kevin Bernard Haley, 24, could get the death penalty for the September, 1984, strangulation murder, rape, sodomy, robbery and burglary of Dolores Clement, 55.

The jury, which began deliberations May 24, deadlocked on whether Haley murdered Laverne Stolzy, 56, in 1984, and on attempted rape and oral copulation counts involving a third victim, who did not testify at the trial.

A mistrial was declared on those counts after jurors voted 9-3 for acquittal in the Stolzy murder and 7-5 for a verdict of guilty in the third case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven M. Barshop said.

Haley is facing a separate trial for the murder of Jodi Samuel, 15, who was robbed and shot on a Wilshire-area street as she walked to catch a school bus.

After his arrest in 1984, police said Haley had admitted committing six rapes and 53 burglaries. His older brother, Reginald, was convicted last year in a series of rapes, kidnapings, robberies and burglaries and was sentenced to 60 years in prison, plus one life term.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said in 1984 that the Haley brothers might be responsible for as many as eight killings, including “some of the most violent murders committed against older women in this city.”

Gates also said they were suspects in 60 rapes and 500 burglaries from South Los Angeles to Venice over a five-year period.

During Kevin Haley’s three-week trial, jurors heard a tape of Haley confessing to the Clement murder and saw a diagram he drew of the crime scene, Barshop said. His fingerprints were also found at the scene, the prosecutor said.

The penalty phase, which is expected to last at least a month, is scheduled to begin next Monday. Barshop said he plans to introduce evidence about the Samuel murder and the 1979 murder of Elizabeth Burns, 79, of Beverly Hills. Charges were not filed in the Burns slaying.