1983 Hawthorne Slaying : Murder Defendant Recants Confession

More than 5 years after Catherine Stroup was shot to death in her Hawthorne apartment and 4 years after Peter Alan Leach confessed to the murder in a tape-recorded interview, Leach told a Torrance jury last week that he didn’t do it.

In surprise eleventh-hour testimony at his trial in Torrance Superior Court, Leach said he merely watched as his friend, Stroup’s son-in-law Michael Seawright, fired the deadly shots on April 5, 1983.

When deliberations begin this week, the jury will have to decide which to believe: Leach’s trial testimony that he witnessed a heated argument and murder, or his earlier tape-recorded confession that he killed Stroup during a botched robbery.

Possible Life Term

If convicted, Leach, 27, faces a possible term of life in prison.

“Are you telling the truth now?” veteran defense attorney H. Clay Jacke asked Leach at the conclusion of his testimony Thursday.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Leach answered.

Leach’s implication of Seawright--who denies any involvement--is just the latest twist in a Byzantine case that investigators originally believed was a simple case of domestic violence.

Police arrived at Stroup’s Rosecrans Avenue apartment 5 years ago to find James Stroup sobbing over his wife’s body. He was charged with murder. A next-door neighbor told detectives that she heard the couple arguing the day of the shooting. The building manager said that James Stroup emerged from the apartment and said, “I think I just killed my wife.”

What he actually screamed from his apartment, Stroup later testified, was, “I think someone shot my wife.” He was jailed for 7 months before being acquitted of killing his 45-year-old wife.

Leach was not linked to the crime until a year after the murder, when police in Lakewood arrested a small-time hoodlum carrying a 22-caliber pistol. It turned out to be the murder weapon. Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Duarte said police traced the gun back to Peter Leach and his brother, Paul Curtis Leach, 25.

The brothers were charged with murder in July, 1984. After numerous legal delays, Peter’s trial began last month, with Paul’s scheduled to follow in the same courtroom.

Until last week, the brothers’ only statements about the case were the confessions that they made in 1984. Peter’s confession was played in court this month.

They told essentially the same story: their friend Michael Seawright hired them to kill his father-in-law, James Stroup, so that Seawright could take over a water-delivery business he owned with the Stroups in the desert near Twentynine Palms. Seawright promised the brothers a share in the business and said they would find several thousand dollars in the apartment.

The Leaches told investigators in separate interviews that the two of them drove from the desert to Hawthorne on April 5, 1983, intending only to rob the Stroups’ apartment. The brothers said they were surprised to find Cathy Stroup at home.

She recognized Peter Leach from visits to her weekend home in the desert and let the brothers inside.

Brother ‘Went Loony’

Peter Leach told investigators that his brother Paul “went loony,” and began choking Stroup from behind. Peter said that he grabbed a red heart-shaped pillow and put it over the muzzle of his pistol.

“I don’t know why I did that, but anyway she grabbed the pillow,” Leach said in the confession. “And when she did the .22 went off and shot her, and I sort of blanked out because I shot her a few more times and I don’t know why.”

Seawright has steadfastly denied any involvement with the murder since 1984, when he was arrested and briefly jailed. He was called to the witness stand last week by Leach’s lawyers, but invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination and refused to testify.

Prosecutors said they lack evidence to charge Seawright with a crime, because state law requires that the testimony of an accomplice be corroborated by independent evidence.

But in dramatic testimony Thursday, Leach told a different story. Leach said that he made his confession up and that Seawright did more than contract a killing.

Leach testified that he and his brother confessed to the murder, after Seawright threatened to harm their relatives. He told us that if we told the truth, “he would waste our whole family,” Leach said. “I was afraid of what he could do.”

Leach told jurors last week that Seawright asked the brothers to give him a lift from Twentynine Palms to Hawthorne. Seawright wanted to talk to his father-in-law about the finances for the family’s water company, Leach testified. But when the three men arrived at the apartment at about 9:30 a.m. they found Mrs. Stroup at home.

Seawright and Catherine Stroup began to argue about the water company, Leach said.

Accused of Skimming

Seawright accused the couple of skimming profits from the company. Leach said Seawright screamed at his mother-in-law, “You can go up to the desert and buy drinks for everyone and eat steaks, while my kids are eating hot dogs and tacos!”

Leach said Seawright then grabbed Mrs. Stroup and yelled: “Don’t let her get her purse. She’s got a gun!”

The two began to struggle and Paul Leach tried to pull them apart, Peter Leach testified. He said that when he ran forward to help, he saw that Seawright had a gun in his right hand.

“I went to get the gun and at the same time the gun went off” and Stroup fell, Leach testified. He said Seawright then held the heart-shaped pillow over the muzzle of the gun and fired a second time at Stroup’s chest.

Leach said his brother ran toward the back of the apartment and called: “Come on, let’s get out of here. He’s crazy.”

Stroup was hit four times, the autopsy showed.

The two brothers jumped out the apartment’s back window and were followed closely by Seawright, Leach said. As the three drove home to the desert, Seawright told the Leach brothers that they had better keep quiet, Peter told the jury.

With Leach attempting to place the blame on Seawright, the trial focused late last week on what could be two pieces of corroborating evidence.

The first was testimony--read to the jury Thursday--that Seawright gave 5 years ago at James Stroup’s trial. Seawright testified then that on the morning after the murder, he found a footprint outside the Stroups’ window that was strikingly similar to his own. “It’s corroborating evidence that he was there the day of the murder,” defense lawyer Jacke said.

Ex-Driver Testifies

Jacke also called a former water company driver as a witness.

Sherwood Herne testified Thursday that he heard Seawright complain that his in-laws were skimming profits from the water company but that Seawright never made any specific threats against them.

Herne said that Seawright told him shortly before the murder, “Somebody is going to die,” and that a week after Stroup was dead said, “See, I told you something was going to happen.” In an interview outside the courtroom, Jacke said that Herne and other witnesses proved that Seawright “was the only one with a motive to do anything” to the Stroups.

Seawright’s lawyer, Philip Daigneault, scoffed at testimony against Seawright. “This is just a desperate act by a young man who is in a lot of trouble,” Daigneault said. “Peter Leach has told several different stories and in a couple of them implicated Mr. Seawright, but they are all without any foundation.”