Woman Who Led Girls to Murderer Sentenced : Courts: Marsha Ramos gets a 34-year prison term on charges stemming from the 1987 Chatsworth abduction and shooting.

A woman convicted of helping a drifter kidnap two Chatsworth girls and kill one of them was sentenced Friday to 34 years in prison after a prosecutor painted her as a “totally amoral” woman who abandoned her six children for a “thrill ride through life.”

Marsha Lynn Ramos, 36, showed no reaction as she was sentenced to the maximum term on her conviction for second-degree murder and seven related charges stemming from the 1987 abduction and shooting.

Ramos, who testified at her trial but did not plead her case Friday, maintains she was forced to aid Roland Norman Comtois in the crimes and will appeal the conviction, said Alex R. Kessel, one of her defense attorneys.

Comtois, 61, was sentenced in July to die in the gas chamber for his role in the kidnaping and murder.

Although Ramos could be paroled in 15 years, San Fernando Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen said, “It is the court’s hope and intent that the defendant not be paroled.”

Coen also said that the 34-year, two-month sentence he imposed on Ramos “is not enough . . . justice has not been served.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold S. Lynn argued for the maximum term, noting that Ramos had a long record of convictions prior to her arrest for murder. He said Ramos had given birth to six children, several of whom were born with chemical dependencies and all of whom were given up for adoption or foster care.

Ramos is “totally amoral,” Lynn said. “She doesn’t care what she does. She’s on a thrill ride through life.”

The kidnaping took place as the girls, ages 13 and 14, were walking in their Chatsworth neighborhood to meet several friends at the corner of Devonshire Street and Lurline Avenue on Sept. 18, 1987.

The surviving girl, who is now 17, testified that Ramos asked her and Wendy Masuhara, 14, to help her start her truck camper, saying the vehicle had stalled.

After they entered the camper, Comtois emerged, brandishing a pistol, the surviving victim testified.

The two girls were then gagged and bound. Comtois drove them to another location where he forced the surviving girl to undress and orally copulate him, according to court testimony.

He also attempted to sodomize her before instructing Ramos to inject her with cocaine.

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

As the two girls sat next to each other in the front seat, Comtois leaned in through a rear window and fired two shots. The first hit Wendy in the back of the head, killing her instantly, the girl testified. The girl said she raised her hand before being shot, deflecting the bullet into her neck.

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

At the trial, defense attorneys sought to convince jurors that Ramos was as much a victim of Comtois as the two girls.

“All her actions were done at gunpoint,” said Kessel. “Everything she did was because she was forced and coerced.”

On the stand, Ramos, her voice at times choked with emotion, said she lured the girls into the camper because Comtois had threatened to “blow my brains out.” She described Comtois as “crazy, angry and agitated.”

Ramos also testified that she secretly dumped half the cocaine from a syringe when Comtois ordered her to give the shot to one of the girls.