Man Convicted in Murder of Free-Lance Writer
A Venice ex-convict was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the death of a free-lance writer whom he had fatally stabbed in her apartment last year.
A Superior Court jury in Santa Monica found Kermis (Taffy) Thompson Jr., 30, guilty of killing Stephanie Bernstein of Venice in April, 1990. Because Thompson was convicted of murder with the use of a knife and during the commission of an attempted rape, he could be sentenced to death, according to Sandi Gibbons of the district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors contended that Thompson, who had been paroled just 10 weeks earlier after serving a term for a 1980 rape, entered Bernstein’s apartment with the intent to rape her. Thompson’s defense attorneys said their client, who is black, killed Bernstein, a white woman, in a drunken rage after she blurted out a racial epithet. The penalty phase of the trial is to start Thursday.
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