N.Y. Man Guilty of Conspiracy, Not Murder, Jury Finds

A New York man, named by convicted murderer Dixie Dyson as the person she and her boyfriend hired to kill her husband in Huntington Beach, was acquitted of murder Monday but was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

Several jurors were stunned later to learn that the conspiracy conviction for George Ira Lamb carries an automatic sentence of 25 years to life in prison, the same penalty as a first-degree murder conviction.

“Why didn’t they tell us that?” one juror demanded when meeting the lawyers later.

Another juror, who asked not to be quoted, said steadfastly: “That definitely would have affected my vote; I have to be honest about that.”

Some jurors said it would not have changed their vote to find Lamb guilty of the conspiracy charge, but they said the severity of the penalty for conspiracy shocked them.

Lamb, 27, of the Bronx, was arrested in New York last year after Dyson agreed to cooperate with authorities following her own first-degree murder conviction in the stabbing death of Mel Dyson on Nov. 18, 1984. He had been stabbed 20 times in the master bedroom of their Huntington Harbour condominium.

Also arrested was Enrico Vasquez, 32, who had been Dyson’s boyfriend at the time of the killing. His trial is scheduled to follow Lamb’s.

Dyson denied at her trial that she was involved. But after her conviction, she said that she and Vasquez had planned to kill Dyson for more than $130,000 in insurance money. She said they hired Lamb, a friend of Vasquez, who would share in the insurance payment.

Dyson testified that Lamb stabbed her husband, who was asleep, while she stayed in another room. She told jurors that she and Lamb then had sex, while her husband lay dead on the floor, in an effort to support her story to police that she had been raped by an intruder.

Dyson was the key witness at Lamb’s trial before Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin in Santa Ana. Lawyers involved in the case had said the verdict would depend on whether jurors believed her or not.

But when the verdicts were announced in Superior Court in Santa Ana after four days of deliberations, just what the jurors thought of Dyson was not clear.

“She had credibility problems, but you could not discount everything she said,” jury foreman Larry Henry said Monday.

Henry and other jurors said difficulty with the murder charge against Lamb was the prosecution’s lack of corroborating evidence.

One juror bluntly asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton afterward: “Why didn’t you put on more evidence?”

Middleton at first just looked at him and then said, “You realize that until Dixie came forward and agreed to talk, we had no case at all.”

It was Dyson’s version that she hid Lamb in the trunk of her car to get him past the guard at the gated complex, the prosecutor explained, that led the police to search the trunk, where they found Lamb’s fingerprints.

One juror explained to Middleton that they found him guilty of conspiracy because there was corroborating evidence to support Dyson’s version that Lamb had flown to California at the time of the killing and that the three of them had been together.

“But when you reach the point of getting inside the house, the corroboration stopped,” the juror told him.

Middleton did not argue, but he did not hide his frustration at the verdict.

Had Lamb been found guilty of first-degree murder, jurors then would have voted whether it was murder-for-financial gain. That would have carried a sentence of life in prison without parole--far more severe than 25 years to life sentence, which can result in a defendant being released in less than 13 years.

“Sure I’m disappointed,” Middleton said later. “But this is the way our system works.”

Middleton said the jury verdict would have no effect on his decision to prosecute Vasquez.

Lamb’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Jeff Lund, said he was confused by the verdict but thought jurors’ comments about the severity of the possible sentence for conspiracy might have opened the door enough to help him at the sentencing, scheduled for Nov. 9.

“If some of these jurors come forward during sentencing and say that knowing the penalty for conspiracy would have affected their vote, yeah, it could help us,” Lund said.