Juror Weds Killer, Asks State to Overturn Conviction

A juror who married a man after voting to convict him of murder, rape and kidnaping has asked the state Court of Appeal to overturn the verdict because she was coerced.

Gwendolyn Wix, 41, was a juror in the murder trial of Steven Erickson, 34, who was found guilty in the February, 1984, abduction and shooting death of Victoria Winchester, 26. After his March, 1987, conviction, Erickson could have gotten the death penalty but received a life sentence without possibility of parole.

The San Fernando Superior Court jurors deliberated 10 days during the penalty phase of the trial, with all but Wix favoring a death sentence. The panel finally acceded to her point of view because jurors feared the case would have to be retried, recalled Harry Godley, who was foreman of the jury.

In March, Wix filed a seven-page declaration alleging impropriety on the part of her fellow jurors. She did not mention her marriage in the affidavit, but in a response to the document last month, the attorney general’s office wrote that her marriage to Erickson had tarnished her credibility.

Lives in Folsom

Wix, who lives in Folsom, according to Department of Motor Vehicle records, could not be reached for comment. Folsom is site of the prison where Erickson is serving his sentence.

The marriage has shocked many of those familiar with the case.

“I’m completely flabbergasted,” Godley said. “I’d like to know how their relationship developed.”

So would Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael E. Knight, who prosecuted the case. He said he had never before encountered a juror marrying a defendant in his 18 years as a prosecutor.

“This is stranger than fiction,” Knight said. “She apparently fell in love with the guy during the trial. I’ve seen some jurors become enamored of the guy, but I’ve never seen where they’ve actually gone and met the guy and married him.”

In the affidavit, Wix said that the jurors discussed the facts of the case with her outside the jury room and that they were biased against Erickson.

“I disagreed with the other jurors on the question of the accused’s guilt on the charges of rape and kidnaping and on the degree of homicide,” Wix said in the affidavit. “The other jurors . . . called me foul names, including ‘bitch,’ accused me of being a cousin or otherwise related to Mr. Erickson, and accused me of knowing the accused before the trial, all because I disagreed with them on these issues.”

‘Refused to Listen’

Wix added that the jurors “refused to listen to my position during the guilt phase deliberations and ridiculed me and shouted at me each time that I tried to discuss the evidence that I believed raised a reasonable doubt about Mr. Erickson’s guilt.”

Godley denies that Wix was coerced.

“That is not true at all,” the former jury foreman said. “She was given every opportunity to discuss.

“You have no idea the way everybody bent over backward to try to reason with her,” Godley said Friday. “They pleaded: ‘Actually show me where I’m wrong.’ She would just say: ‘This is how I feel.’ Well, we have to have cogent reasons.”

The attorney general’s office said there is no evidence that Wix’s fellow jurors acted improperly.

“The supporting affidavits do not contain any evidence that the jurors refused to deliberate,” wrote Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald E. De Nicola.

Knight said he asked to have Wix removed from the jury when she contacted defense attorneys during the penalty phase of the trial. However, his request was denied by Superior Court Judge Howard J. Schwab.

Knight said he plans to investigate whether Wix had contact with Erickson during the trial or whether she might have known him before serving on the jury.

“She could have gone to the jail and visited the guy, I don’t know,” Knight said. “It sure as hell sounds like something was going on.

“She has a duty to tell the prosecutor if she knows a defendant,” he said. “Assuming she knew him before the case started, it would be perjury. And if you develop a bias during a trial, you should tell somebody.”

But defense attorney Gerald L. Chaleff said that he is certain that Wix had no contact with his client during the 6-month trial.

“Any contact she had with him started after the completion of the trial,” Chaleff said. “I contacted her a couple weeks after the trial to ask her about jury deliberations, and she wanted to know how she could get in touch with him.”

Chaleff said he saw nothing unusual about Wix’s romantic interest in Erickson.

“This is not uncommon,” Chaleff said. “You sit there every day for 4 or 5 months hearing the most intimate details of someone’s life, seeing them all the time, being put into an incredibly emotional experience in having to decide their fate . . . Everybody reacts in different ways.”

Knight described the events that led to Winchester’s death as follows:

Winchester met Erickson on Feb. 4, 1984, at the home of a mutual friend. After an evening at a Santa Monica nightclub, the couple went to Erickson’s mother’s apartment in North Hollywood. Winchester asked to be taken back to her Venice home, but Erickson refused and raped her. At one point, Winchester tried to escape through a bathroom window but was threatened and beaten.

Erickson forced Winchester into a pick-up truck and drove around for about 2 hours, finally taking her to Hansen Dam where he fired two shots into her head and one into her chest. He had taken the gun from his mother’s apartment.

Winchester’s body was found in Hansen Dam Park on Feb. 5, 1984.