Arguments Finished in Comtois Case

Attorneys for the man charged with the murder of a 14-year-old Chatsworth girl and the shooting of her best friend sought Monday to discredit the chief witness in the case against him--the girl he is accused of sexually assaulting and leaving for dead in an abandoned station wagon.

In closing arguments in the trial of Roland Norman Comtois, court-appointed defense attorney Thomas F. Kascoutas urged jurors not to place too much credence in the testimony of the girl, now 16, because her memory of the events of Sept. 18, 1987, may have faded.

“You want to believe her,” he said. “You feel compelled to believe her. . . . But do not enhance her powers of perception and recollection.”

Prosecutors allege Comtois, a 60-year-old transient who has been convicted of attempted rape, robbery and drug dealing, fatally shot Wendy Masuhara after kidnaping the two girls near their Chatsworth homes. Comtois faces the death penalty if convicted.

Kascoutas also contended that no physical evidence introduced during the trial connected Comtois to the crimes. Prosecutors acknowledged that claim, but said it should have no bearing on the case.

“You don’t always have physical evidence,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold S. Lynn told the jury. “Sometimes you just have eyewitnesses.”

Much of the case against Comtois has relied on the testimony of the girl he is accused of abducting, sexually assaulting and shooting in an abandoned station wagon in Woolsey Canyon.

Lynn called the girl a “wondrous waif of destiny” who was “meant to survive to tell you . . . what happened.”

Answering Kascoutas’ claim that the girl’s memory may have faded, Lynn said: “The issue is not whether she can remember. She issue is whether she can ever forget. . . . Is she going to forget the man who fired at point-blank range into the head of her best friend?”

During earlier testimony, the girl, whose name was not made public, testified that she and Masuhara were abducted at gunpoint by Comtois and a female accomplice, whom police have identified as 36-year-old Marsha Lynn Ramos, as they walked along their Chatsworth street at about 11:30 p.m.

Ramos, who is being tried separately, also faces the death penalty.

The girl said Comtois bound and gagged both girls before ordering her to undress. He undressed himself and ordered the girl to orally copulate him before he attempted to sodomize her, she said. He later ordered Ramos to inject the girl with cocaine, she said.

He then took the two girls to a deserted canyon, where he shot both in the back of the head as they sat in an abandoned station wagon.

Masuhara died instantly. The other girl survived because she held up her hand as the gun was being fired and deflected the bullet. The bullet lodged in her neck, and she was found wandering Valley Circle Boulevard, holding a bloody sweater to her wound.

She later identified Comtois and Ramos.

“She must have had a guardian angel hovering over her, a guardian angel who saved her life,” Lynn said.

The case is expected to go to the jury later this week, following judge’s instructions that may take several days because of the number of counts involved. Instructions were to begin this morning.