New Murder Trial Ordered in Campbell Case

Collene and Gary Campbell were bout to have lunch at a convention in Las Vegas Thursday when they learned by telephone that a man who had confessed to killing their son had been granted a new trial. Too upset to eat, they began the drive back home to San Juan Capistrano in disbelief.

“Gary and I wonder how we can make it through another trial; this is tremendously painful,” Collene Campbell said.

Lawrence Raymond Cowell, now 39, was convicted 3 years ago and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the April 17, 1982, murder of Scott Campbell. Cowell had confessed to undercover police agents that he was the pilot of a private plane when Campbell, 27, was killed and his body dumped into the ocean a mile past Santa Catalina Island. Cowell admitted his role in planning the murder.

But the 4th District Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision, ruled this week that Cowell’s confession had been coerced. Prosecutors will not be able to use it at a new trial.

Cowell’s co-defendant, Donald P. DiMascio was convicted of first-degree murder at a separate trial last year and is now serving a life sentence without parole. He has lodged an appeal before the same justices. In a taped telephone conversation before he even met them, DiMascio confessed to the same police agents a day later that he actually killed the victim.

Victim’s Parents Stunned

On Thursday, the victim’s parents were wondering what they had done to “deserve this,” Collene Campbell said.

She is the sister of Mickey Thompson, the racing entrepreneur who was killed with his wife, Trudy, by unknown gunmen last year in front of their home in Bradbury, Los Angeles County. Collene Campbell is in charge of his estate and was in Las Vegas this week on business related to Thompson’s affairs.

At the time of the DiMascio trial, she said going to court every day was like “going to our son’s funeral, over and over again.”

But the next Cowell trial, she said, will be even worse: “Now we have to deal with it after we are already beaten and down.”

It was the Campbells who convinced Anaheim police that their son’s disappearance in 1982 was the result of foul play. It was the Campbells who discovered that Cowell had rented a private plane from Fullerton Airport the same morning their son disappeared. They found his car in the airport parking lot 2 weeks later, with a thick film of dust showing that it had sat there for some time.

What the Campbells did not know was that their son had been flying to Fargo, N.D., to complete a cocaine sale. And what Scott Campbell did not know was that he was dealing with an undercover federal agent, Greg Fox.

It was the Campbells who later persuaded Fox to fly to Orange County and assist Anaheim police in a plan to get Cowell’s confession.

At a March 9, 1983, meeting with Cowell at his auto body shop in Anaheim, Fox and Mike Patterson of the Anaheim Police Department pretended to be big-time drug dealers from the East who needed to assure themselves that Campbell was dead to satisfy their bosses.

But Justice Edward J. Wallin claimed in the appellate court opinion that their remarks to Cowell were so threatening that he may have told them only what he thought they wanted to hear.

Wallin cited a few of the agents’ comments:

Fox: “Hey, you know, it’s your life. . . . This is come to a point. . . . I ain’t seen a body. That what’s he’s (Patterson) here to see. And . . . he ain’t going back till it happens.”

And later from Fox: “You don’t know what problems are; you’re gonna have some problems.”

Wallin noted that Patterson talked about “a couple of broken bones or something to start with” and threatened to call in others.

‘His Own Imminent Demise’

“Cowell finally began to incriminate himself only because the conversation increasingly focused on his own imminent demise,” Wallin ruled. “The statements were plainly coerced. . . . It was clearly implied to Cowell that unless he talked, and related a story Fox found believable, he would be killed.”

County prosecutors had argued that while the agents did indeed trick Cowell into confession, he confessed voluntarily. Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, who tried Cowell in a non-jury trial, had agreed with that interpretation.

Cowell at first denied knowing anything about Campbell’s death. Then he told them that he knew who had done it. Finally, he not only confessed his own involvement, he gave them DiMascio’s name. Cowell said the killing was DiMascio’s idea because Campbell had swindled DiMascio in a previous drug deal.

DiMascio, in his confession to the agents, said he had killed Campbell because Cowell had promised him $5,000.

The appellate justices pointed to other evidence in which Cowell had been involved: He had confessed to a jail informant. He later lied about where he had been the morning Campbell disappeared. And blood was found in the airplane after the murder.

But Justice Wallin ruled that while this still may be evidence of first-degree murder, it was also not inconsistent with the defense’s argument that Cowell had no prior knowledge that DiMascio was going to kill Campbell.

Cowell’s attorneys were delighted at the appellate ruling. “It’s not a voluntary confession when you get someone to talk by threatening to kill them,” said Gregory A. Jones, one of Cowell’s trial attorneys.

Parents Relieved at Ruling

Gerald J. Reopelle, Cowell’s co-counsel, said that he talked with Cowell’s parents, now living in Parker, Ariz., and that they are relieved at the appellate ruling.

Cowell is in Folsom Prison and is expected to be returned to Orange County Jail within a few months, Reopelle said. He had been free on $250,000 bail at his first trial. Reopelle said the defendant would probably be eligible for bail again.

“It’s an important issue here; we just can’t have the police getting confessions out of people the way these guys did it,” Reopelle said.

But the Campbells see it another way.

“What hurts more than going through a new trial is that this just isn’t right,” Collene Campbell said. “Gary and I wonder what we have done to deserve this.”