Alleged Operator of Rock House Charged in Slaying

A Los Angeles woman who allegedly operated a cocaine rock house was charged Friday with the murder of a sheriff’s deputy who was shot as he and other officers tried to serve search warrants.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said that although Dorothy L. Waters’ now-deceased son was the one who actually shot Deputy Jack Miller, Waters herself was being charged with the slaying.

“We are charging her with murder because she set up the drug operation, including the purchase of firearms, and the shoot-out with the officer was a reasonably foreseen consequence of her actions,” Reiner said.

Waters’ son, Edward Walker, 20, shot himself to death during the gun battle with deputies that erupted when they tried to serve search warrants at Waters’ Central Los Angeles home Jan. 8.

Waters, 42, was also charged with the attempted murder of Miller’s partner, Deputy John Dickerson, sale of cocaine, maintaining a place where cocaine is sold, possession for sale of cocaine and conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

She was initially charged following the shoot-out with allowing her home to be used for storing illegal narcotics. When she entered Municipal Court Friday morning for a preliminary hearing on that charge, she was ordered by Judge Rick Brown to be taken into custody without bail on the new charges.

Waters, who does not face a possible death sentence, pleaded innocent to the charges and faces a preliminary hearing Oct. 5.

Reiner said that during the last nine months, a joint investigation by his office and sheriff’s homicide detectives developed new evidence in the case leading to Friday’s charges.

The investigation showed that Waters and her son conspired to sell cocaine from the house located in the 1400 block of West 55th Street, where bars were installed on the doors and windows to transform it into a rock house.