Jurors Finally Hear Kraft, but Only as an Interrogator

Jurors heard extensively from Randy Steven Kraft for the first time in his yearlong murder trial in Santa Ana Tuesday, but it wasn’t from the witness stand: Instead, he was questioning witnesses on his own.

Kraft questioned and exchanged smiles with a small parade of friends and relatives on the second day of defense testimony at his death penalty hearing.

“You look just the same,” Kraft said, grinning, to a college classmate he had not seen in 22 years.

“So do you,” the witness answered with a nervous laugh.

Kraft, whom prosecutors label as perhaps the most prolific serial killer in the country, was convicted by the jury two months ago of the murders of 16 young men in Orange County. When the penalty hearing concludes, jurors must return either a verdict of death or life without parole.

The 44-year-old Kraft, a computer consultant from Long Beach, was arrested on May 14, 1983, when two California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him for a traffic violation in Mission Viejo found a dead Marine in his car. Several of the 45 slain young men prosecutors have linked to Kraft since then were Marines known to be hitchhiking.

Kraft was granted co-counsel status before the trial when he explained to the court that, because he is gay, he might be better suited to ask some of the questions. But Kraft had not exercised his right to question witnesses since the first day of testimony last September, when he briefly cross-examined one of the arresting officers.

Kraft lawyer C. Thomas McDonald on Tuesday asked witnesses who knew Kraft to tell jurors about his good qualities. But Kraft’s own questions of the same witnesses dealt with the issue of his guilt.

McDonald asked witnesses if Kraft was a loving, caring person. Kraft asked the witnesses if they knew him to be militaristic, if they ever saw any weapons at his home, or ever knew him, as a gay person, to have an interest in men younger than he. All of them said no to each of those questions.

McDonald said outside the courtroom Tuesday that he did not think Kraft’s questions were out of place, even though jurors already have decided his guilt.

“Randy has always maintained he is innocent, and there are certain facts that were not brought out of the guilt phase that Randy wanted the jurors to hear,” McDonald said.

McDonald denied that this is a tactic to allow jurors to hear from Kraft without putting him on the witness stand.

“The facts will come out why we’re proceeding this way,” he said.

Kraft, wearing blue jeans, a brown sports jacket and tennis shoes, remained seated at the table as he asked his questions.

Of primary interest to Kraft with some of the witnesses was whether they viewed him as a “chicken queen” or “chicken hawk,” someone in the gay community with a proclivity for younger men.

Degree of Charm

Close friend Larry Chitwood testified that Kraft was not. Did Chitwood know anyone who was? Kraft asked. Certainly, Chitwood said, but Kraft wasn’t one of them.

Kraft asked one friend, Carl Herringer, if he thought Kraft was a particularly slick salesman, and the witness answered no. Prosecutors theorize that Kraft must have used some degree of charm to persuade his victims to accept a ride.

Kraft asked Chitwood if he thought Kraft was the kind of person who could easily approach a stranger at a bar. Another prosecution theory is that Kraft met some of his victims at bars and persuaded them to go riding with him.

“No, you are more quiet and subdued,” Chitwood said.

All of the witnesses spoke highly of Kraft’s character and said they had been shocked to hear that he had been arrested as a serial killer.

“He was the person I would least likely suspect could ever be accused of something like that,” said Russell Chung, a former classmate of Kraft at Claremont Men’s College.

The lead-off character witness for Kraft was Carol Barnett, who worked at one of the firms where Kraft was a computer consultant. She had gotten to know Kraft socially and spoke fondly of taking him with her family on a white-water rafting trip.

‘A Proud Mother’

“I felt like a proud mother,” Barnett said. “He was very well accepted by the rest of the group.”

Barnett said some co-workers tended to shun her because she was a senior citizen. But under Kraft’s tutelage, she said, she began to shine in the computer field and even received the highest score on one company test.

Two of Kraft’s nieces testified how much they cared for him.

One of them, Diana Lane, said she was particularly fond of Kraft because he would always spend time with the younger ones at family gatherings “while the other men all sat in front of the TV watching football.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown asked very few questions of any of the witnesses. But sparks did fly between Brown and McDonald over the defense attorney’s first question of the day.

McDonald told the witness, Barnett, that “this jury is going to have to make a decision whether or not to kill Randy or grant him life without parole.”

Brown argued at a side bench conference with McDonald and Judge Donald A. McCartin that jurors only return a verdict; they don’t kill anybody. McDonald argued back that Brown was trying to “sugarcoat” the jury’s role. The judge let McDonald’s statement stand.

More character witnesses are expected today. Kraft’s attorneys have told the court that it could take three weeks to complete their case.

Kraft’s trial, delayed for years because defense lawyers claimed that they needed extra time to prepare, began a year ago this week with the first stages of jury selection.

The judge had warned the jurors that the case would take at least a year to complete.