California : IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Death Sentence for Murderer Upheld

The death sentence of Kevin Cooper, a prison escapee convicted of the stabbing and hacking murders of four people in a Chino Hills home in 1983, was upheld by the state Supreme Court. The court, in a 5-2 decision written by Justice Armand Arabian, rejected Cooper’s bid for a new trial on grounds of faulty instructions to the jury. Cooper, 33, was convicted of the slayings of F. Douglas Ryen and his wife Peggy, their 10-year old daughter, Jessica, and a visiting 11-year old neighbor, Christopher Hughes. Authorities counted 140 separate wounds on the victims. The murders took place two days after Cooper escaped from Chino Institution for Men.