Murder Charges Dropped : Guilty Plea Averts Trial for 3 Deaths at Drug Lab

A 24-year-old man charged with the deaths of three people at a clandestine drug-manufacturing laboratory in Van Nuys pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of manufacturing methamphetamine, authorities said.

As part of a plea bargain with prosecutors, Russell Blackwood, of Vista in San Diego County, will receive a sentence of five years in prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Schirn said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 19 by Superior Court Judge Candace Cooper.

Blackwood originally was charged with three counts of second-degree murder in the Oct. 5, 1986, deaths of David Michael Smith, 20, of Vista; his brother, Christopher Richard Smith, 27; and Lisa Ann Cross, 20, both of Van Nuys. The three died after inhaling toxic fumes at a duplex on Densmore Avenue. Blackwood was prosecuted through a state law that permits a second-degree murder charge if a death occurs during the commission of a dangerous felony, in this case the manufacture of a drug.

Schirn said prosecutors entered into the plea bargain because they determined that the murder case against Blackwood was a weak one.

Schirn said it was an appropriate plea since proving intent in a murder case would have been very difficult. “I understand how a jury might have some problems with that,” he said.

Just before Blackwood’s guilty plea on Wednesday, Cooper had ruled that evidence which Blackwood sought to have withheld from his trial was admissible.

Blackwood’s attorney, Larry Farinholt, had petitioned the court to suppress statements Blackwood made to police after the deaths. Farinholt also had sought to withhold evidence indicating that chemicals used in methamphetamine production were found in the trunk of Blackwood’s car, on the ground that no search warrant had been obtained.

Cooper denied the motion, after hearing five days of testimony, ruling that Blackwood’s confession and the search conducted of his car were reasonable methods of obtaining evidence about the three deaths and the drug-manufacturing laboratory, Schirn said.

Prosecutors contended that Blackwood was a key player in a ring which produced methamphetamine. Farinholt, however, maintained that Blackwood had no involvement in the actual manufacture of the drug, but merely supplied chemicals to the three people who died.

Los Angeles Police Detective Lyle Mayer testified last week that Blackwood told him he had bought the chemical ingredients to produce methamphetamine at a laboratory in Vista. Blackwood had told the officer that he would receive one-third of the profits from the eventual sale of the drug, Mayer said.