4 Suspects in Murder Rampage Plead Not Guilty : Violence: Confessions in three San Gabriel Valley killings may complicate legal proceedings, attorneys say. Links to two other slayings are being investigated.

Four murder suspects charged in the kidnaping and murders of three San Gabriel Valley residents entered pleas of not guilty Thursday, despite confessions made to police by two of the suspects.

Defense attorneys, noting that not guilty pleas are customary in death penalty cases, said they doubted the confessions will seriously harm their clients’ defense.

But widespread publicity about the confessions may prompt requests for separate trials, separate juries in the same courtroom or a change of venue, the attorneys said.

“If this stuff has come out in the newspapers and you have a society poisoned by the publicity, where could they get a fair trial?” asked attorney John Tyre, who represents suspect Robin Machuca, 26.

Machuca, her brother, John Lewis, 21; Lewis’ pregnant girlfriend, Eileen Huber, 20; and Vincent Hubbard, 26, are accused of the random kidnapings, robberies and slayings of three San Gabriel Valley residents who were stalked outside the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry and an automatic teller machine in West Covina.

The victims were Willie Newton Sams, 40, of West Covina, who was shot Aug. 18 before his body was thrown in a school dumpster; Elizabeth Nisbet, 49, of Diamond Bar, who was abducted from the Puente Hills Mall Aug. 24; and Shirley Denogean, 56, of Claremont, also taken from the Puente Hills Mall, on Aug. 27.

Lewis and Huber have been linked by investigators to a fourth murder, the July 5 shotgun slaying of Norwalk motorist Jose Avina, 22, who was trailed to Monrovia and slain before his truck was commandeered.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Urgo said Thursday charges may be filed in that case next week.

Meanwhile, West Covina police are investigating links to a fifth murder possibly committed by the same suspects Aug. 4 behind a West Covina restaurant.

Augustine Ramirez, 53, of West Covina, was shot in the abdomen as he and his wife, Linda, left the Magic Mushroom restaurant on Valinda Avenue about 1 a.m. said West Covina Police Cmdr. John Distelrath.

The two were getting into their car when they were accosted by two men who tried to rob them, Distelrath said. When Ramirez resisted, he was killed by a shotgun blast. The two men fled in a brown station wagon, Distelrath said.

Ramirez’s credit card was later discovered on the ground near the dumpster at Edgewood Middle School where Sams’ body was found.

The similarity of Ramirez’s slaying and the others and the unlikelihood of the credit card turning up at the school, five miles from the restaurant, have led police to suspect a connection, Distelrath said.

“It’s a good speculation,” he said, but work on the case is still continuing.

Meanwhile, the four suspects, who had seemed defiant and unconcerned during their first appearance in Citrus Municipal Court in West Covina on Tuesday, appeared subdued and chastened Thursday as they filed into Judge Fred A. Felix’s courtroom dressed in blue County Jail jumpsuits.

Felix set Sept. 25 for the four to return to court, when a date will be set for a preliminary hearing.

Tyre attributed the change in mood to a realization of the seriousness of the charges against them. All four could face the death penalty. Tyre said his client, Machuca, “was not happy” at hearing that Lewis and Huber had confessed to police.

Attorney David Daugherty said remorse had probably prompted his client, Huber, to confess involvement in the crimes. He characterized her as the “least culpable, the least involved’ in the murders. He added that Lewis probably confessed because of Huber’s statements.

“Unlike the other defendants, she’s never been in custody, she’s never been arrested, she’s never been in trouble,” he said. “I think she was in over her head with this thing.”

Daugherty said he believes Huber probably will be offered a plea bargain because of her cooperation with police and her lack of a criminal record.