Woman’s Role Was Crucial to Robbery and Killing, Jury Is Told : Trial: Victims would not have let her companions into their home had she not laid the groundwork, prosecutor says.

A prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that without Nanette Scheid setting up a ruse, her two co-defendants could never have pulled off the robbery in which they took an Anaheim couple’s mint-condition Corvette, and which led to the wife’s murder and her husband being left paralyzed from a bullet to the back of the neck.

“This plan doesn’t work without Miss Scheid,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown said during his closing arguments in the capital case.

Scheid, 29, admitted that on July 10, 1988, she went to the home of Kazumi and Ryoko Hanano to test-drive the Corvette they had for sale for $20,000. She testified that she returned later that night with her boyfriend, Robert (T-Bone) Taylor, and Norman James Dewitt to buy it.

But after Scheid left the house, Taylor and Dewitt handcuffed the couple, according to Kaz Hanano’s testimony, and then shot them each twice after forcing them to kneel in their bedroom with a mattress over their heads.

Ryoko Hanano, 60, was killed instantly. Kaz Hanano, now 65 and paralyzed, lay for six hours handcuffed to his wife while awaiting help.

Prosecutors contend that Scheid not only knew a robbery was going to take place, she carried into the house the briefcase containing the two guns her co-defendants would use.

Scheid’s first visit to the house was part of a “well-executed plan,” Brown told jurors at the end of three weeks of testimony.

“What she was doing was casing the place and softening up the Hananos,” Brown told the jurors. “When they all return later, you think Mr. Hanano would have let those other two in his house without Miss Scheid? No way.”

Hanano had testified that he was fearful of the other two because they looked like Hells Angels, but that Scheid, wearing a clean summer dress, was unthreatening.

Taylor, 39, of Sunset Beach, has admitted his role and told police that he fired the gun. Dewitt, 34, of Cypress, told police he wasn’t there. But Taylor, Scheid and Kaz Hanano have all made statements to authorities claiming Dewitt was at the Hanano house.

Scheid has denied knowingly taking part in the crimes. In closing arguments for the defense Wednesday, her attorney, Charles Margines, said she barely knew Taylor, even though she had recently moved into a Sunset Beach apartment with him and some of his friends.

“Just because she accepted an offer to move in doesn’t mean she wanted to embark on a life of crime with him,” Margines argued. “If she was really going to lie about this, why would she admit that she was the one who carried in the briefcase?”

Dewitt’s attorney, George Peters, argued that the prosecutor has “a lot of cockamamie theories” about what happened. Peters contends that Brown failed to prove that his client intended that the victims be killed. Because Dewitt is not accused of firing the gun, the jury must find “intent to kill” before the case against him can be elevated to the death-penalty level.

Taylor’s attorney, Gary Pohlson, barely made a closing statement. Pohlson is expected to concentrate his efforts on the death-penalty phase.

Prosecutors are asking for the death penalty against Taylor and Dewitt, but only first-degree murder against Scheid. She would face 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Scheid testified for a day and a half, claiming that she had no idea the briefcase she was carrying had guns inside it. She said she thought it was $20,000 in cash that Taylor had gotten in an insurance settlement, which he planned to use to buy the Corvette.

But Brown spent much of the day Wednesday trying to puncture Scheid’s testimony that she was only along to help Taylor buy a car.

He pointed to her statements to the Hananos: “This car is exactly what I’m looking for.” When they offered her a drink, she told them, “I’m too excited about the car to drink anything.”

Yet in her testimony, she said the car wasn’t for her, but for Taylor, and that when he pulled into the garage of their Sunset Beach apartment with the car later that night, she didn’t bother to say anything about it.

Brown also suggested to the jurors that if they had any doubt about Scheid’s guilt, they should put the two guns in the briefcase and see how heavy it is.

“There’s no way anybody could think that was a briefcase full of money,” he said.

Brown’s rebuttal to the defense attorney’s arguments is scheduled before Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno today.