Ex-Hospital Worker Who Murdered for Money Gets Life in Prison

A former hospital orderly at County-USC Medical Center was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering a co-worker’s roommate in a scheme to collect on a $100,000 mortgage insurance policy.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Alan B. Haber sentenced James Flores Luna for the April 28, 1985, murder of Stephen Eldridge and an earlier murder attempt. Luna’s attorney had asked Haber to sentence Luna to life with a possibility of parole for the crimes.

Luna, 37, of La Puente, pleaded guilty in August, 1989, to attempted murder and first-degree murder for financial gain, a special circumstance that would have allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him.

Eldridge, 27, was stabbed 44 times and his penis was cut off in the Van Nuys home he co-owned with Maureen McDermott, a County-USC nurse who was sentenced in March to death for her role in the murder. Luna, the key prosecution witness against McDermott, testified during that trial that his former co-worker paid him to kill Eldridge and mutilate his body in hopes that police would wrongly conclude that it was a homosexual crime of passion.

Luna also testified that McDermott engineered a March 21, 1985, murder attempt against Eldridge, a knife attack that went awry when the victim broke free and fled.

In exchange for Luna’s testimony against McDermott, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty and to remain silent during his sentencing hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine K. Mader said.

Luna spent nearly five weeks on the witness stand detailing the crimes, and McDermott was convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances and attempted murder.

Two other men who helped kill Eldridge received immunity in exchange for testifying.

Luna’s attorney, Fritzie Galliani of the alternate defense counsel’s office, told Haber that Luna deserved leniency because he had been sexually and physically abused as a child and viewed McDermott as a mother figure for whom he would do anything.

Had her client received the lesser sentence, Galliani argued, he still would have had to spend at least 30 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

Galliani further argued that Luna should receive parole because he cooperated with prosecutors, testifying not only at McDermott’s trial but during the penalty phase when jurors hear evidence and recommend a punishment.