Trial Begins for Man Accused of Revenge Slaying

Richard Dale Wilson, the San Francisco accountant accused of gunning down the man suspected of killing his fiancee, had an “extreme hatred” for the man, the prosecuting attorney said Thursday as Wilson’s trial began in Westminster.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas H. Woodsmall, in opening statements in West Orange County Superior Court, said the defendant killed Jeffrey Molloy Parker to avenge the death of his fiancee, San Francisco socialite Joan McShane Mills.

“He made a number of threats to Mr. Parker,” Woodsmall said. “He had an extreme hatred of Parker.” Wilson, 47, is accused of shooting Parker twice on the doorstep of the home of Parker’s mother in Costa Mesa on the night of Aug. 2, 1983. The shooting occurred less than 36 hours before Parker was scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles on charges that he killed Mills on April 30, 1983.

Mills, 33, died after she and Parker, whom she had met only hours before, engaged in drinking, drugs and violent sex in her Beverly Hills hotel room. Police said they found Parker, then 37, in Mills’ room standing over her dead, badly bruised body.

Parker initially was released. But an autopsy later showed that while Mills had cocaine and alcohol in her blood, she had died of blunt-force injuries to her chest and abdomen. Parker then was charged with murder.

One of Wilson’s two defense attorneys, Joel W. Baruch of Newport Beach, admitted that his client had a motive for killing Parker but said that he would present evidence that proved Wilson was not even in the area the night Parker was killed.

“He never did say, not once, ‘I’m going to kill Parker.’ He was glad that Parker was dead, but he did not kill him,” Baruch told the jury.

At the time of Mills’ death, Parker, suspected of being a drug dealer, was on probation for battery of a West Los Angeles woman in 1981. The woman was assaulted after she took drugs allegedly supplied by Parker.

During Baruch’s recital of Parker’s alleged drug dealing, his penchant for violence and the manner in which Mills died, Wilson grimaced and his eyes reddened.

Prosecutor Woodsmall said Wilson’s brother-in-law, Robert Clinton Hale, would testify that Wilson arrived at Hale’s Wilmington home less than an hour after Parker was killed and telephoned an associate.

“It’s over. It’s done,” Wilson said on the phone, according to Woodsmall.

The prosecution, without any physical or eyewitness evidence, is basing its case on the testimony of Hale and Wilson’s brother, Okel Aaron Wilson of Modesto.

Statements by those men led Costa Mesa police to arrest Richard Wilson in April, 1987, almost four years after Parker’s murder.

During the preliminary hearing, both men said Wilson had told them of his plans to kill Parker. His brother also testified that Wilson had told them how he had killed Parker. Both, however, later recanted most of their testimony. But Woodsmall told the jury Thursday that Hale’s motive for changing his testimony was “fear for his life.”

But Baruch, who is expected to present between 20 and 40 witnesses during the three-month trial, said he would prove that both Okel Wilson and Hale have had psychiatric and drinking problems and were never told by Richard Wilson that he killed Parker.

The defense attorney also said that Okel Wilson was a “down-and-out alcoholic” who has “a smoldering resentment” of his successful younger brother. Baruch also characterized Hale as “the social outcast of the Wilson family.”