Jury Convicts Man in Murders of 2 Store Clerks

A jury convicted a San Diego man Friday of two counts of first-degree murder in the 1985 slayings of store clerks and found that special circumstances applied in one instance.

After 5 1/2 days of deliberations, the San Diego Superior Court jury found Keith Cosby, 29, guilty in the murders of Fred Harb, 49, on June 1, 1985, and of Kenneth Muck, 55, on Aug. 26, 1985.

The verdict sets the stage for a penalty phase in the trial, in which the same jury could recommend that Cosby be put to death. Its only other option is to recommend a sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole.

However, jurors declined to find two other special-circumstance allegations and deadlocked 11-1 for finding two other special-circumstances charges.

The jury ruled that the allegation that Harb was tortured during his murder was not true.

Inexplicably, the jury also found the special circumstance of multiple murders was not true, despite convicting Cosby of two first-degree murders.

Cosby’s attorney, Allen Bloom, theorized that the jury must have convicted Cosby on the felony murder rule, believing his partner, Terry Bemore, 32, did the actual killing in one of the slayings. That rule states that all participants in a robbery in which a killing is committed are guilty of first-degree murder, even if the killing was accidental or was committed by only one of the participants.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Anear refused to speculate on why the jury returned its verdict against the multiple murders.

Anear noted during the trial that Muck was stabbed 37 times during a robbery at the Aztec Liquor Store on El Cajon Boulevard. Harb was shot, strangled with a necktie, stabbed four times and bludgeoned at an AM-PM mini-market on University Avenue.