Wife in Kill-for-Pay Murder Trial Linked to 1963 Death Threat

A Canoga Park woman accused of hiring two former Los Angeles police officers to kill her ex-husband in 1983 also threatened 24 years ago to kill an earlier husband, the former spouse testified Monday.

Richard B. Shepard said he left his then-wife, Janie E. Ogilvie, in May, 1964, about six months after their marriage, after she threatened to kill him with his own pistol during a fight.

Shepard said he recounted the story to Thomas Weed--who later married Ogilvie--three months before Weed disappeared from his Northridge apartment in February, 1983. Shepard said Weed sought his advice after Ogilvie threatened to kill him, too.

Ogilvie, 45, is the key prosecution witness against Richard Herman Ford, 47, and Robert Anthony Von Villas, 44, accused of killing Weed in exchange for $20,000 from Ogilvie. Weed’s body never has been found, but prosecutors allege he was murdered by the two former officers and buried in the desert. They are on trial before separate juries and face the death penalty if convicted of killing Weed, 52.

Talk About Ogilvie

Shepard, a defense witness called by Ford’s attorneys, testified that Weed telephoned him in November, 1982, and asked to meet for drinks and to discuss Ogilvie, whom he recently had married.

The two men spent several hours at the Marriott Airport Hotel, drinking and discussing their respective marital problems with Ogilvie, Shepard said.

Weed said Ogilvie had threatened to kill him, Shepard recalled, and he asked if Ogilvie had made similar threats against Shepard when they were married. Weed added that the two were fighting over their share of a Northridge allergy laboratory they both owned, Shepard testified.

“My advice to him was give her the business. Janie is crazy,” Shepard testified. “I said you can start another business. You can’t start another life.”

Threatened With Pistol

Shepard testified that Ogilvie had pulled a gun on him about six months after their 1963 marriage during a fight in which Ogilvie hysterically ripped drapes from the windows and dislodged chunks of plaster from the walls of their home. Shepard said he shook Ogilvie, and she then got his pistol from the couple’s bedroom and threatened: “Hit me again and I’ll kill you.”

They subsequently divorced and years later, in 1980 or 1981, after a dispute over the raising of their son, Ogilvie threatened Shepard again, he said.

Shepard quoted Ogilvie as saying: “I will get even with you no matter what I have to do, even if I have to kill myself and put my body in a trash can behind your business.”