Clinching Murder Testimony : Life Sentence Is Last Act in a Brotherly Melodrama

Andrew L. McCarter, convicted of the rape and murder of a Fullerton waitress, says he would like to see his brother, Michael, who testified against him, one more time before he goes to prison.

“I’d tell him that I love him,” McCarter said during an interview at Orange County Jail.

McCarter, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced today by Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald. Because of the rape, McCarter’s sentence automatically is life without parole.

McCarter, who still maintains that he is innocent, says his brother’s testimony sealed his fate.

Prosecutors had an array of compelling evidence against McCarter. A hair that matched his was found on the victim, and a mark on the victim’s jaw matched his ring. Two people testified that they saw his truck, which had Texas license plates, outside the woman’s apartment when she was killed.

In addition, Michael McCarter, 36, told the jurors about incriminating statements his brother made to him the day after the victim’s death.

“Michael was the case against me,” Andrew McCarter said. “I don’t know why he did it. I thought we were close.”

The victim was Julie Fenton, 24, a Cal State Fullerton graduate and part-time waitress at Elmer’s Restaurant in Fullerton who also worked at a health spa. She was raped and strangled at her Fullerton apartment June 21, 1986.

McCarter was seen sitting with her and others at Elmer’s after she got off work the night before. He was arrested two days later.

The first jury deadlocked, with three voting to acquit. McCarter was convicted at a second trial, but the jurors voted 7 to 5 not to give him the death penalty. Prosecutors then decided not to pursue the death penalty again.

McCarter said this week he is frustrated that he did not testify on his own behalf, on the advice of his attorney, George A. Peters.

“I’d like for people to know my side, that I’m not this monster the prosecutor has made me out to be,” he said.

McCarter said that it could have been anybody’s truck at the apartment, that it could have been anybody’s ring and that other hair samples were found at the apartment.

His past, McCarter said, shows that “what happened to Julie is from the other side of the well from the person I am.”

He was a karate instructor who once taught self-defense to women in a rape prevention class. He had never been arrested before. He had his own construction business--primarily roofing work. He owned his own truck and had been a hard worker all his life.

He had moved to California from his home in Longview, Tex., to live with his brother and Michael’s wife in Fullerton.

‘Being Close to Michael’

“I thought coming out here, being close to Michael, would be the greatest thing in the world,” McCarter said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Melvin L. Jensen pointed out another side to McCarter’s past: “What about his ex-wives?”

McCarter had been married three times. Two of those former wives testified at the penalty phase of his trial that he had beaten them and raped them after their separations. One said he threatened to kill her if he ever caught her with another man. The other he raped on two occasions.

McCarter did not deny it.

“I should not have done those things to them,” he said this week. But he called those rapes “a family thing.”

He had a child by each wife and had been upset about being cut off from the children, he said.

But there were more episodes. Four Orange County women testified that he had made forceful sexual advances toward them. One of the women said she had to fight him off.

“I thought I knew him,” one of the women said, “but I guess I didn’t.”

McCarter’s response to those incidents was: “Boys will be boys; I suppose I came on too strong with those women.”

McCarter’s most ardent supporter is his mother, Faye. She is in a hospital in Texas recovering from heart surgery and will not be at today’s sentencing.

“Andy was always a hard worker, a wonderful son,” she said this week. “Michael was always jealous of Andy. It’s the only reason I can think of that he turned on Andy.”

Michael McCarter refused to be interviewed. But prosecutors do not view him as a family turncoat.

Michael McCarter spent 10 days in Orange County Jail when it appeared to authorities that he was hiding to avoid testifying against his brother at a preliminary hearing.

‘Concerned About Julie’

When Michael McCarter finally did agree to testify at his brother’s trials, he told jurors that Andrew asked him to step into the bathroom the morning after they had all left Elmer’s.

“He said that he was concerned about Julie,” Michael McCarter testified. “He wanted me to call or see if she was OK. . . . He said that he had gone by there, but he wouldn’t tell me why.”

To prosecutors, this placed McCarter at the scene and showed that he had lied to police earlier.

Andrew McCarter said he had not gone to Fenton’s apartment or his own apartment in Anaheim but to his brother’s home. He said he slept in a tent in the yard so he would not wake the household. But no one saw him to support that claim.

“I don’t think the brother’s testimony was the key to the case,” Jensen said. “There was just too much other evidence that (Andrew McCarter) was there and (that) he killed her.”

But Michael McCarter apparently feels the strain of his testimony too.

“He has been ostracized by his family,” a close friend of his said. “Don’t they realize how difficult it was for him to get up there and testify against his own brother?”

Andrew McCarter said he will speak on his own behalf before being sentenced today. He doesn’t know yet what he’s going to say. But McCarter said he won’t admit guilt in Fenton’s death.

“I will speak from the heart,” he said. “I know who I am. I know my roots.”