Actor Convicted of Murdering His Grandfather During Theft

After four days of deliberations that capped a 4 1/2-month trial, a jury on Thursday found Noel P. Scott, a struggling actor and musician, guilty of first-degree murder in the 1983 slaying of his grandfather in North Hollywood.

The jury apparently accepted a key prosecution argument that Scott was one of the few intruders his grandfather’s guard dog would have allowed into his house without a fight.

Scott, 29, of Hollywood, faces a maximum sentence of 27 years to life in prison when he is sentenced June 28, prosecutors said.

Scott showed no emotion as a clerk read the verdict in San Fernando Superior Court. His mother, Debra Scott, burst into tears as the verdict was announced and sobbed throughout the brief proceedings.

Prosecutors said Scott shot 70-year-old Louis Fox three times in the head after struggling with him in the bedroom of Fox’s house. He had entered the house through the open sliding-glass door to Fox’s bedroom before dawn on Oct. 16, 1983, hoping to steal $20,000 in jewelry.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sidney D. Trapp Jr., who prosecuted the case, said Scott wanted the jewelry to save his relationship with his girlfriend, who was becoming frustrated with his difficulty making money in the entertainment business. Trapp also said Scott expected to inherit the bulk of Fox’s estate.

Scott, whose resume states that he was featured in television series such as “Eight Is Enough” and “King’s Crossing,” testified that he was at a Hollywood dance club when the killing took place.

Jurors quickly adjourned to an assembly room after Thursday’s verdict was read and refused to speak to reporters. They had been deliberating since Monday, asking several times to have trial testimony read back to them, court officials said.

Scott’s girlfriend testified during the trial that Scott went through his grandfather’s jewelry box three weeks before the killing and fired Fox’s .32-caliber pistol into the floor of the man’s bedroom. He also told a friend how easy it would be to steal Fox’s Rolex watch and “pinky” ring, both of which were stolen the night of the killing, according to testimony.

The grandfather was shot with his own gun, prosecutors said, and Scott’s fingerprints were found on a flashlight that Trapp said Scott used to see his target in the dark bedroom.

Perhaps most important, prosecutors said, was the fact that Scott was one of the few people who could get past Fox’s German shepherd guard dog, “Dante.” The grandson had befriended the dog during a two-month stay at his grandfather’s house before the killing, Trapp said.

Jurors apparently were unconvinced by defense attorney Sherwin C. Edelberg’s argument last week that the prosecution failed to make its case because it depended on the testimony of a convicted felon.

The felon, Charles Berkowitz, told police in the fall of 1988 that Scott confessed the murder to him four days after the killing.

On the witness stand, however, Berkowitz testified that he had lied, hoping to receive favorable treatment after being arrested on suspicion of burglary. But Berkowitz stood by his account that Scott had asked him after the shooting how to alter fingerprints and beat a polygraph test.

Berkowitz did not receive favorable treatment after the 1988 statement and was sentenced to the maximum term of three years in prison, prosecutors said.

Nevertheless, it was that statement that led police to arrest Scott in November, 1988, investigators testified. Before that, the case remained unsolved, although police were beginning to focus on Scott because he was one of the few who could have gotten past Fox’s guard dog.

Edelberg argued that because police did not have enough evidence to arrest Scott until Berkowitz made the statement, the prosecution did not have enough evidence to convict him, since the statement was a lie.

Trapp, however, told jurors that Scott “had to eliminate the grandfather, who had discovered him and recognized him. He held the flashlight up to find him, he found his target . . . and fired three shots into the head of Lou Fox.”