Murder Trial Opens for Soviet Defector

An Estonian refugee, on trial in the killing of a North Hollywood woman who had befriended him, repeatedly stabbed her and later struck her on the head with a hatchet “just to make sure” she was dead, a prosecutor said Monday.

Peter Sakarias, 24, is charged with murder in the July, 1988, slaying of Viivi Piirisild, 52, with the special circumstance that the killing occurred during the burglary of her home. He may face the death penalty if convicted.

Piirisild had been active in the Baltic American Freedom League, a local organization that helps refugees from the former Soviet Baltic republics. Her death shocked the Estonian emigre community, which had welcomed Sakarias and Tauno Waidla, defectors from the Soviet Army.

Sakarias had been sent to a state mental institution after he was found to be unable to cooperate in his own defense, but about a year ago the court changed its position and found him competent to stand trial, said Sakarias’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Daniel Blum.

In his opening statement Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen told a San Fernando Superior Court jury that Sakarias and his alleged accomplice Waidla, 23, broke into Piirisild’s vacation home in Crestline, Calif., the day before the killing and took a knife and hatchet from a storage shed.

He said the two men broke into Piirisild’s North Hollywood home, knowing that she would be alone because her husband was away on a business trip. Ipsen said they waited for her to return from a dentist’s appointment and attacked her without warning.

Ipsen said Waidla struck her repeatedly on the head with the blunt end of the hatchet. He said Sakarias then stabbed her in the chest several times. The men took her to a back room where, Ipsen said, Sakarias struck her on the head again with the hatchet to make sure that she was dead.

The two men then stole jewelry and credit cards, one of which was used to purchase two airline tickets to New York, he said. The two were captured about a month later as they tried to cross the border of Canada, where they had fled, back into the United States at Rouses Point, N.Y.

In March, Waidla was sentenced to die in the gas chamber after being convicted of murder. Waidla had lived in Piirisild’s home for about a year, performing odd jobs in return for room and board, before he was thrown out because he could not support himself.