Jury Convicts Glendale Man in 4 Traffic Deaths

After deliberating for less than three hours, a jury on Wednesday convicted a 28-year-old Glendale man of manslaughter for driving drunk and killing two mothers and their two daughters as they waited on a traffic island to cross a residential street.

William Conway, a former Glendale parks and recreation worker, sat motionless, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, as a Pasadena Superior Court clerk read six verdicts in the packed but hushed courtroom.

Afterward, Judge Carol Fieldhouse told Conway that he could remain under house arrest at his mother’s home until a March 7 sentencing hearing. He was released on $10,000 bail in March, 1989, and has been monitored by authorities through an electronic device attached to his wrist.

Conway was convicted after an eight-day trial on four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and two counts of causing an accident with injuries while driving under the influence of alcohol. He faces up to 18 years in prison.

After the judge finished speaking, Conway and Public Defender Michael Allensworth rushed out a back door. Conway’s elderly mother, Virginia Conway, and his sister, Louise, sat stunned in the back of the courtroom. All around them, jubilant family members and friends of the victims jumped from their seats, hugging and congratulating each other.

“It’s over, it’s done, and the system works,” said William Cramer, who lost his wife and 9-year-old daughter in the July 13, 1988, accident. “I don’t even have anger anymore. Honestly, right now I feel a little sorry for Mr. Conway. He has a lot more to go through while the rest of us are going to be doing good things.”

Members of Conway’s family left the courtroom in tears, without commenting on the jury verdict.

During the trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. James Rogan successfully argued that Conway was legally drunk and traveling nearly 80 m.p.h. when he hit five pedestrians waiting on the traffic island to cross Verdugo Road.

Patricia Carr, 36; her daughter, Caren, 6; Valerie Cramer, 32, and her daughter, Brianna, were killed in the accident. Billy Cramer, now 13, was able to dive out of the path of the speeding car, and suffered only a broken finger.

Allensworth said he will appeal, charging that jurors reached the conviction based on emotion. He said unfair and inappropriate evidence was used in the trial, including a graphic police videotape of the accident scene that showed the victims’ contorted bodies.

“Obviously the jury acted more out of passion than intellect,” Allensworth said. “I mean, what if there had been five escaped robbers from San Quentin on that traffic island? Would they have reached that verdict?”

On Monday, Rogan had given a dramatic, silent closing argument by placing cups of beer on the jury’s banister, then angrily snapping his fingers to indicate how quickly the victims had lost their lives.

But some jurors said the performance had little effect on their decision. Juror Carrol Harris said another juror, a reformed alcoholic, told the others on the panel that the smell of the beer on the banister had made him sick. Another juror suggested it was a waste of good beer, Harris said.

Billy Cramer, who during the trial tearfully recounted the accident to jurors, sat calmly next to his weeping father while the verdicts were read. Afterward, the boy, dressed in a neon orange T-shirt and gray shorts, said he had no reaction to the jury’s verdict.

“I don’t know,” he said shyly, when asked what his thoughts were when he heard the verdict. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”