Closing Arguments Concluded in Trial of Man Accused of Killing Teen-Age Girl

After almost three days of closing arguments, a jury is expected to begin deliberations today in the murder trial of a man accused of strangling a 17-year-old girl.

Willie Ray Roberts, 36, of San Diego is accused of killing Melissa Orchulli on July 12, 1988. The teen-ager was on her way to a continuation school when she was lured or forced into a vacant house and strangled.

If the San Diego Superior Court jury convicts Roberts and finds that special circumstances filed in the case are true, the same jury will return to decide whether Roberts should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Roberts is accused of killing Orchulli while committing sex crimes, lying in wait, and while burglarizing the house, on Euclid Avenue in East San Diego.

The closing arguments by attorneys involved summaries of months of testimony by witnesses.

Several girls testified that they saw Roberts approach them on their way to school in 1988 near where Orchulli was later found slain.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Denise McGuire told jurors “the truth has done him in” and called the defendant “a first-degree murderer.”

McGuire told jurors a “fresh sheet of school paper” was found beside the body, which had the letters JR and a telephone number that was one digit off from being Roberts’ phone number.

McGuire has said Roberts sometimes went by the nickname of “Junior,” and the initials “JR” were tattooed on one arm.

She was to give her rebuttal today after defense attorney Patricia Robinson concludes her presentation.

Robinson argued most of the day Tuesday, and the jury was sent home by Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund an hour early because one juror had a toothache.

Robinson said Roberts was only charged because “he was walking along with girls” in 1988 during the same time period and in the same area where Orchulli was slain.

“Not one piece of physical evidence that was found at the scene comes back to Mr. Roberts. Not one piece,” she declared.

Roberts, who was convicted of assaulting his wife with a deadly weapon in 1986, remains in County Jail without bail.