CAMARILLO : Man Says Mortician Admitted Poisoning

A prosecution witness testified Friday that David Wayne Sconce admitted he killed rival mortician Timothy Waters by spiking his drink with poison that caused a fatal heart attack.

The testimony came from David Edwards during a preliminary hearing on a murder charge against Sconce in Ventura County Municipal Court.

Edwards, a muscular former Pierce College football player, also testified that Sconce paid him and two other men $700 to $800 for assaulting another rival and his roommate in August, 1984.

Edwards testified that he and his associates punched mortician Ronald Hast and housemate Steven Nims and sprayed their eyes with a mixture of “ammonia and vinegar and jalapeno juice and anything else we could put together.”

Edwards said Sconce then offered him the same amount to beat up Waters for spreading rumors that the Sconce family’s Lamb Funeral Home was conducting multiple cremations. Edwards said he and an associate collected the cash but never beat Waters because too many police cars were near his Alpha Society crematory in Burbank that day in late 1984 or early 1985.

Edwards, who worked at Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, confirmed that crematory workers burned up to eight bodies at once in each of two ovens at the Lamb Funeral Home before state inspectors shut it down in 1987.

Sconce often used pliers to pull gold teeth and bridgework from the mouths of corpses, which earned him the nickname “Hitler,” Edwards testified. Sconce then sold the gold and pocketed the profits, Edwards said. Sconce is serving a five-year sentence for pleading guilty to burning more than one body at a time and stealing dental gold.

Some time after the overweight Waters died in Camarillo in April 1985, Edwards testified, Sconce told him that “the fat guy” had succumbed to a heart attack after eating out. Sconce said he arranged to have Waters called away to answer a phone call at a restaurant, then walked past the table and slipped poison into his water glass, Edwards testified.

Prosecutors have accused Sconce of murdering Waters with oleander. Testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.