Jury Recommends Gas Chamber for Girl’s Killer : Courts: The panel decides Roland Norman Comtois, 60, should die. He is convicted of slaying a Chatsworth 14-year-old and sexually assaulting and shooting her best friend.

The same jury that found Roland Norman Comtois guilty of murdering a 14-year-old Chatsworth girl and shooting and sexually assaulting her best friend recommended Thursday that the 60-year-old transient die in the gas chamber.

The gray-bearded Comtois trembled as the clerk read the jury’s recommendation of death, then wiped his eyes as he was led from the crowded courtroom by sheriff’s deputies.

Comtois will return to San Fernando Superior Court on July 31 for formal sentencing by Judge Ronald S. Coen.

Comtois was convicted June 6 on eight felony counts--including murder, attempted murder, sexual assault and kidnaping--in connection with the 1987 abduction and shooting of Wendy Masuhara and her 13-year-old friend. Masuhara died, but the other girl, now 16, survived and testified in the case against Comtois.

Outside the courtroom, family and friends of the victims celebrated the verdict with hugs and laughter.

“Personally, I really didn’t care if it was the death penalty or life” in prison, said Lynne Masuhara, mother of the slain girl. “I just don’t want him out on the street.”

Comtois’ family, which had watched much of the trial’s penalty phase this week, was not present for his sentencing.

None of the 12 jurors who decided Comtois’ fate would talk to reporters.

Because of the nature of Comtois’ crimes, the jury had to choose between sending him to prison for the rest of his life or sending him to the gas chamber. It announced its decision at 1:45 p.m. Thursday, after about five hours of deliberation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold S. Lynn, who prosecuted the case, said he was not surprised by the speed with which the jury returned its verdict.

“The evidence was overwhelming,” he said. “It was the only just verdict.”

Defense attorney James D. Gregory could not be reached for comment.

During the two-week trial, the chief witness against Comtois was the surviving girl, who testified that she and Wendy were walking through their Chatsworth neighborhood near Lurline Avenue and Devonshire Street about 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 18, 1987, when they were lured into a motor home by a woman who said she was having mechanical trouble.

Authorities believe the woman was Marsha Lynn Ramos, 36, who will go on trial in August. She also faces the death penalty if convicted.

As the two girls were helping Ramos start the camper, Comtois appeared from the back of the vehicle carrying a handgun. “He told us if we didn’t cooperate . . . he was going to kill us,” the girl said.

The two girls were gagged and bound. Comtois then drove to another location where he forced the girl who survived to undress and orally copulate him. He also attempted to sodomize her before instructing his female accomplice to inject the girl with cocaine.

The girl then said that she and Wendy, who had been locked in a bathroom, were driven to an isolated area in Woolsey Canyon and told to climb into the front seat of an abandoned green station wagon.

As the two girls sat next to each other in the front right seat, Comtois leaned in through the left rear window and fired two shots. The first shot hit Wendy, who was still bound and gagged, in the back of the head. She died instantly, her head falling into the lap of her friend.

The surviving girl testified she saw the gun before Comtois fired a second shot and raised her left hand to protect herself. The bullet was deflected by the girl’s index finger and lodged in her neck behind her ear.

She was later found wandering Valley Circle Boulevard, holding a blood-soaked sweater against her wound.

Comtois was arrested four days later in the Elysian Park area. As he attempted to flee, officers fired three shots, two of which hit Comtois.

Los Angeles Police Officer Dan Labrada testified that as he handcuffed Comtois, the wounded man said: “I’m sorry . . . didn’t mean to kill ‘em.”