Man Sentenced for Drug-Related Slaying

A Pacoima man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Thursday in a drug-related killing that initially was blamed on a man who said he was a good Samaritan driving the victim to a hospital.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen sentenced Eric Dean Cunningham, 28, who pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder for the April 21, 1989, killing of Walter Bickly Hackman, 23, of Palm Desert.

In return for Cunningham’s guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop special-circumstances allegations that could have resulted in a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said Cunningham shot Hackman in a dispute over a drug purchase. Hackman drove his van several hundred yards from the scene and collapsed, police said.

Police originally arrested Vaughn Grant, a 39-year-old house painter from San Fernando, after they saw him driving a van that fit the description of Hackman’s vehicle and contained the dying Hackman.

They released Grant after witnesses told investigators that they saw Cunningham shoot Hackman.

But Grant, who said he simply discovered the van and was trying to get the wounded man to a hospital, was charged with grand theft because police believed he was trying to steal the van and some of Hackman’s money.

Vaughn pleaded no contest to the theft charge because, he said, authorities told him they would release him from jail if he did. But in an interview with The Times, he insisted he was acting as a good Samaritan, not a robber.