Handyman Gets Life in Murders of 2 Women
A 38-year-old handyman who pleaded guilty to beating two women to death three years ago in a Rosemead church where he worked was sentenced Friday to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Rickey Darnell Owens appeared in jail blues in Pasadena Superior Court and remained quiet as Judge Jack B. Tso handed down the sentence for two counts of murder committed in the course of a robbery, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael Duffey. Before the sentencing, Duffey read a statement of apology to the victims’ families on behalf of Owens.
On April 25, Owens admitted killing Harriet Baden, 61, of Temple City, and Ruth Lee Leung, 64, of Los Angeles, whose badly beaten bodies were found Oct. 30, 1987, in the Chinese for Christ Los Angeles Mandarin Church on Del Mar Avenue in Rosemead. Baden was a church bookkeeper, and Leung, a clerk.
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