Man Gets 8 Years in Drug-Related Killing

A Palmdale man was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison for shooting a man to death in the desert east of Palmdale during a dispute over drugs.

Brad Millward, 32, was sentenced as part of an agreement in which the defendant pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the July 5, 1987, killing of Bruce Gruber, 28, of Yucca Valley. In return, prosecutors agreed not to proceed with the first-degree murder charge originally filed against Millward.

Millward was acquitted of murder in the death of a second man, Albert Dulyea, 37, of Norwalk, whose body was found in Millward’s garage the same day Gruber was shot. In an earlier trial for the two slayings last October, jurors deadlocked over whether Millward murdered Gruber. Millward was facing a retrial in the Gruber slaying when prosecutors offered him the plea bargain last month.

Millward’s attorney, Alex R. Kessel, contended Wednesday that another man actually shot Gruber. He said Gruber and Danny Lucero, 22, of Palmdale had ties to a methamphetamine lab next to Millward’s property and wanted to “pay back” Millward for reportedly telling law enforcement officials about the drug lab. Lucero was aiming a rifle at Millward when he accidentally shot Gruber, Kessel contended.

But Lucero, who testified as a prosecution witness at the trial, said he was driving in the area with his family when he saw Millward shoot Gruber in the head. Lucero said he contacted sheriff’s deputies, who arrested Millward after a search of the crime scene, near 240th Street East and Avenue P.

A second suspect allegedly fled and has not been found by police.