Mentally Ill Man Admits 2 Killings : Courts: Nathan Trupp, who shot the Universal Studios guards in 1988, is sentenced to a mental hospital.

As members of his victims’ families wept, a longtime mental patient admitted in court Friday that he killed two Universal Studios guards while stalking actor Michael Landon. The man was then found not guilty by reason of insanity as part of a plea bargain that prosecutors say will likely keep him confined for life.

Nathan Nicholas Trupp, 43, was committed to a state hospital for the mentally disabled for the Dec. 1, 1988, slayings of Armando Torres, 18, of Los Angeles, and Jeren Beeks, 27, of La Crescenta. The unarmed security guards were shot to death at Universal’s main gate, moments after Trupp had been turned away after asking to see Landon, who he believed to be a Nazi.

Under terms of the agreement, Trupp pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in Los Angeles Superior Court because prosecutors wanted him to admit that he killed the two guards. But Judge Clarence A. Stromwall, at the request of prosecutors, accepted Trupp’s original plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and committed him to an unspecified state mental hospital.

Trupp, who also is accused of killing three people in an Albuquerque, N.M., bagel shop two days before the slayings at Universal Studios, sat attentively in the courtroom, answering “guilty” twice when asked by Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris how he pleaded to the murder charges.

Norris said after the hearing he was satisfied with the agreement and added that it was unlikely Trupp would ever be released from custody. The plea bargain was necessary, Norris said, because convicting Trupp of the two murders would be unlikely. He has a long history of mental illness, and court-appointed psychiatrists who examined him after the shootings concluded he was insane.

“In practical terms, we think he will never be released,” Norris said. “It is the result we had to accept. We had three top psychiatrists who found he was insane.”

Several friends and members of the families of the two victims attended the hearing. Some burst into tears when the names of the two victims were announced during the reading of the charges. Afterward, the families said they were basically pleased with the plea agreement--as long as Trupp remains in custody.

“I just hope they keep their side of the bargain and keep him in there for life,” said Jaime Torres, Armando Torres’ older brother. He said that whether Trupp was in a prison or a mental hospital did not matter, “as long as he is not allowed to hurt anyone else.”

The victim’s tearful mother, Ninfa Torres, said: “I hope he never gets out because of the damage he has done to these families.”

Authorities in Albuquerque said Friday they had no immediate plans to proceed with a prosecution of Trupp for the three other murders. Michael Cox, head deputy in the Bernalillo County district attorney’s office, said his office would “stand by” and be ready to prosecute Trupp if he is ever found sane and released in California.

Norris said that Trupp, who is under medication to control mental problems, will continue to receive psychiatric treatment and will be entitled to petition periodically for hearings on whether his sanity has been restored. But prosecutors will be allowed to challenge any effort he makes to gain his freedom.

“He is very mentally disabled and he is a great danger,” Norris said. “We hope that he will never be released.”

Authorities said Trupp has experienced mental problems since he was at least 13 and was hospitalized at least twice for treatment. Prosecutors and Deputy Public Defender Stephen L. Hobson have said Trupp, who is Jewish, hears voices he believes come from God and has delusions about Nazis.

Trupp was living in Albuquerque when, on Nov. 29, 1988, he went to a bagel shop he had frequented and fatally shot the shop owner and his daughter and son-in-law. Trupp had complained earlier to a cab driver that the bagels at the shop were poisoned.

After the shooting, Trupp took a bus to Los Angeles and went to Universal Studios seeking Michael Landon, who he believed to be a Nazi, authorities said. At about 6 p.m. on Dec. 1, he approached the main gate but was turned away when he asked for Landon. Trupp walked away from the gate but a few moments later came back and opened fire with a handgun, authorities said.

Minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy responding to the shooting call spotted Trupp walking on a street near the studios and attempted to stop him. Trupp and the deputy exchanged shots and Trupp was wounded.

As the suspect was being tended to by paramedics he repeatedly called out, “Help me! Kill me!”

Hobson said Friday that the exact reasons for Trupp’s rampage remain unknown. “Why he did what he did, he has no insight to,” Hobson said.

Hobson said Trupp’s delusions about Nazis may be rooted in his upbringing by a mother who also suffered from schizophrenia and an obsession with Nazis. Hobson said that before Trupp was born, his mother lived in a German “Hell’s Kitchen” area of Baltimore where many residents were pro-Germany during World War II and treated her badly.