Apartment Manager’s Murderer Should Die, Jury Says

A jury recommended Wednesday that a 27-year-old Panorama City man should die in the gas chamber for raping, strangling and stabbing to death the manager of his apartment building.

The Van Nuys Superior Court jury took just over a day to decide that Mark Alan Bradford should receive the death penalty for murdering Lynea Kokes, 28, on April 18, 1988.

Bradford, 27, a convalescent home cook, sat quietly as the verdict was read. He was convicted last month of first-degree murder, rape, sodomy and residential robbery in Kokes’ death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carole A. Chizever praised the verdict, but Bradford’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Dennis G. Cohen said, “I don’t think Mark Bradford is the type of defendant who deserves the death penalty.

“There’s no denying he did what he did, but you don’t give death to a person with no prior record,” Cohen said. He said Bradford had been drinking heavily before the killing.

Jury Foreman Dolores Wernick said jurors “were all of one mind that it was a heinous murder” and faulted Bradford for showing no emotion in court and no remorse during a taped confession he made to police. Bradford did not testify during the trial.

Judge Michael J. Farrell can accept the jury’s recommendation or sentence Bradford to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He scheduled formal sentencing for July 3.

Bradford confessed to Los Angeles police that he choked, raped and sodomized Kokes after helping her move into the apartment in the 9500 block of Van Nuys Boulevard. He said he went home and showered before deciding to come back and kill Kokes with a kitchen knife to keep her from testifying.

Kokes was moving in with her husband and infant son to become the new on-site manager as part of an effort by the apartment’s new owners to evict drug dealers and prostitutes from the apartment complex and encourage young families to move in, officials said.

Kokes’ husband, Alex, came home and found his wife dead hours after the killing. Bradford was arrested at his apartment later that night after his roommate found a broken knife blade in Bradford’s laundry and called police.

The couple’s baby was with a sitter at the time of the murder, officials said.