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Man Found Guilty of Teen-Ager’s Murder

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A Glendale man has been convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a Pacoima teen-ager, whose body was found in a shallow grave in the Hollywood Hills in July, 1988.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Tuesday found Charles Kenneth Anderson, 46, guilty of the rape, sodomy and murder of Suzanne Thomas, 16.

The jury also found Anderson guilty of the special circumstance of murder during a sexual assault. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said they did not seek the death penalty.

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Authorities said Thomas met Anderson on July 20 in Pacoima and was last seen leaving a Van Nuys party with him. A hiker found her body two days later in a grave near Forest Lawn Memorial Park, less than 2 miles from Anderson’s home. She had been bludgeoned and her throat had been slashed.

Anderson had been paroled in 1982 after spending 7 years in prison for beating a woman in a Burbank real estate office. That attack occurred nine days after his prison release for an earlier robbery and kidnaping conviction, authorities said.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 20.

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