Death Penalty Will Be Sought in Pearce Case

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a teacher’s aide accused of hiring two Escondido teen-agers to kill her estranged husband, officials said Thursday.

Special-circumstances charges will be filed against Roberta Pearce, 41, when she is arraigned Monday in Vista Superior Court, said Linda Miller, a district attorney’s office spokeswoman.

Miller said the death penalty will be sought because the killing of Robert (Wayne) Pearce, 40, appeared “so cold-blooded and heinous” based on evidence presented during the recent preliminary hearing.

Prosecutors will file two different special-circumstances allegations, charging Pearce with murder for financial gain and with lying in wait.

Miller said that Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller decided to seek the death penalty after discussing the case Wednesday with Deputy Dist. Atty. Tim Casserly, who is prosecuting it, and Donald MacNeil, chief prosecutor in North County.

Pearce is accused of promising $100,000 and two used cars to a pair of 15-year-old students at an Escondido high school if they killed her husband. Wayne Pearce was slain as he left his Cardiff apartment Jan. 31.

The students, Anthony Pilato and Isaac Hill, pleaded guilty in April to ambushing Wayne Pearce and stabbing him repeatedly with a knife and hatchet. During the preliminary hearing, they testified that Roberta Pearce had hired them to carry out the crime and that the weapons they used came from her Valley Center home.

The attorney representing Pearce has steadfastly maintained that his client is innocent. Several teen-age witnesses said the teacher’s aide at Orange Glen High School wanted her husband dead so she could collect on $200,000 in life insurance and keep her house, which the couple’s impending divorce threatened to take away.