Youth Says Pearce Provided Sex, Drugs Before Husband’s Slaying

An Escondido teen-ager said in a court hearing Wednesday that a teacher’s aide at his high school had sex with him and provided him drugs in the days before he and a friend killed the woman’s estranged husband at her behest.

Isaac Hill, 15, said Roberta Pearce bemoaned having to head to the hospital after the assault and “act like she cared” as her husband struggled to survive.

Hill, one of two Orange Glen High School freshmen who pleaded guilty last week to killing Robert (Wayne) Pearce outside his Cardiff apartment, also said the drugs he ingested before the slaying made him feel “more powerful,” but he stopped short of blaming his actions on the narcotics.

Not Taken Seriously

Testifying in the second day of Pearce’s preliminary hearing, Hill said he and Anthony Pilato, also 15, felt that the woman’s solicitations were not serious until she offered them $100,000 to split between them, as well as her two used cars.

The attorney representing Pearce expressed incredulity at the youth’s testimony, suggesting that several aspects were fabricated in an effort to please authorities and ease his stay in the juvenile justice system.

Attorney William Fletcher said he was amazed that Hill could “lie like that with a straight face. For a young man, he is a very accomplished storyteller.”

Fletcher said after the hearing that Pearce “absolutely” denies furnishing drugs to Hill or any of the other teen-agers who frequented her Valley Center house in the month before the killing.

Moreover, the popular teacher’s aide for students with learning disabilities at Orange Glen denies that she and Hill had sex, Fletcher said.

The attorney said that, during an interview with homicide detectives after he was caught, Hill was specifically asked if he had sex with Pearce and told them he had not.

Ownership Threatened

Hill and Pilato admitted in San Diego Juvenile Court last Friday that they used a kitchen knife and hatchet to slay Wayne Pearce, a 40-year-old construction superintendent who had separated from his wife in late November.

Authorities contend that Pearce wanted her husband dead so she could reap $200,000 in life insurance money and keep her sprawling, tile-roofed house in Valley Center, which the looming divorce threatened to steal away.

The preliminary hearing in Vista has offered the first detailed version of the events leading up to the Jan. 31 slaying outside the Cardiff apartment Wayne Pearce was sharing with two young women, one of them his new girlfriend.

Hill testified that Pearce drove the two youths to the apartment about 10 days before the slaying.

During the visit, Hill said, he was armed with a handgun given him by Pearce when he knocked on the door of the apartment, intending to kill the man. The plan was foiled, however, when one of the roommates answered instead, Hill said.

The pair talked again with Pearce that night, and “she said that gun wouldn’t do the job,” Hill testified, prompting the boys to choose the knife and hatchet for the early-morning attack.

Sexual Allegations

A few evenings before the killing, Hill said, he was playing with Pearce’s dogs when the animals scampered into Pearce’s bedroom. He followed and was “just playing with the dogs on the bed” when the woman “took my hand and we just started having sex,” Hill said.

There was no talk, however, of Pearce providing sexual services in exchange for the slaying of her husband, Hill said.

On several occasions, Hill testified, Pearce provided him and other teen-agers with marijuana and crystal methamphetamine. For several nights before the slaying, the youths stayed up all night because of the drugs, Hill said.

Moreover, Pearce gave him a hypodermic syringe to shoot up an unidentified liquid substance the night before the incident, he said, adding that “it made me feel more powerful.”

“I’m not blaming it, but I’m not saying (the substance) didn’t help” his determination to go forward with the killing, Hill said.

After the attack, Hill and Pilato returned to Pearce’s house to discover that she had already received a call from the hospital.

‘Had to Play a Role’

“She said she had to go down to the hospital,” Hill said. “She had to play a role . . . and act like she cared.”

The boys left that day for Tijuana, where they holed up in a hotel for several days, Hill said. Pearce took down $300 after a few days to help them pay the bills, but they later returned to Escondido and were captured by authorities, he said.

During his daylong stay on the witness stand, Hill was questioned intensely by Fletcher. Afterward, the defense attorney said the allegations of a sexual liaison between Hill and Pearce, as well as talk of her providing drugs, were “a recent figment of (Hill’s) imagination.”

“I would characterize the inconsistencies as significant,” Fletcher said, arguing that Hill and Pilato, who is to testify today, are actually helping Pearce’s case with their testimony.

Although Fletcher said that “portions of their statements are probably true,” he maintained that it was not Pearce who “put in motion” the effort to kill her estranged husband.

Fletcher said the woman “may have expressed displeasure” with her husband in the midst of the divorce, hinting that the youths could have misconstrued such statements and carried out the slaying.

“If you’ve got someone being nice to you, and you’re seeing them hurt, you may well have some sympathies for them,” the attorney said.