DeHoyos Gets Death Penalty for Killing Girl : Punishment: Judge could reduce sentence to life imprisonment for rape, murder of 9-year-old Nadia Puente.

A Superior Court jury Wednesday decided that Richard Lucio DeHoyos, an unemployed fast-food worker from Texas, should die in the gas chamber for the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in a motel room.

The jury deliberated for five days whether DeHoyos should receive the death penalty or life imprisonment for the kidnaping and murder of Nadia Puente, whose body was found in a trash can in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

DeHoyos, 34, who at times snarled and barked like a dog during earlier court sessions, showed no emotion when the verdict was read.

His formal sentencing was set for Dec. 6 before Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey. While Dickey can change the sentence to life imprisonment, no Orange County judge has overturned a jury’s death verdict since the 1978 death penalty law was enacted.

In an emotional statement outside the courtroom following the verdict, Sara Puente, Nadia’s mother, said DeHoyos had to “pay for what he had done” and “will not get a second chance to do it again.”

Nadia’s murder is considered one of Orange County’s most vicious crimes. The fourth-grader was returning home from Diamond Elementary School on March 20, 1989, when DeHoyos, claiming that he was a teacher, enticed her into his automobile and drove to a nearby motel. He drowned her in the bathtub and then sexually assaulted her, wrapped her body in a motel blanket, placed her body in a trash can and hauled it to Griffith Park.

DeHoyos’ 14-year-old daughter, Sandra, was sitting in the front row of the courtroom Wednesday, and he blew a kiss at her as he entered. “I love you,” he said quietly as he pointed at her from his chair.

As the death sentence was read by the court clerk, Sandra DeHoyos bent over, sobbing, her shoulders shaking as her mother tried to comfort her.

“I love my father very much,” she said. “They’re killing a sick person. He’s sick. Why should they kill someone who’s sick? They’re sick themselves if they’ll kill a sick person.”

After nearly five days of deliberating in the penalty phase, the six-woman, six-man jury notified the judge Tuesday morning that they were “split” and could not reach a unanimous decision. A hung jury would have meant that Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon would have to either retry the penalty phase to attempt to get a death penalty decision or settle for life in prison without parole.

Dickey sent them back to discuss among themselves whether the court could do anything to assist in their deliberations. Hours later on Tuesday afternoon, they announced that they had reached a unanimous decision.

But Dickey ordered the jury to go home and return Wednesday morning to announce its decision. One of the woman jurors cried Tuesday as she left the courtroom.

Jury members, somber and tired-looking from their long ordeal, avoided questions from reporters and would give no indication of what led to the turnaround in the jury room. “I have nothing to say,” said forewoman Vicki A. King. Jury member Chat Tran said later in a telephone interview: “I’ve been through a lot. I really have no comment.”

Defense attorney Milton C. Grimes said he felt that there must have been one or more persons on the jury who thought DeHoyos should live.

“I’m just curious about what was said in the thirteenth hour,” Grimes said, referring to the jury’s quick turnaround from being deadlocked to supporting the death penalty.

On Tuesday, he suggested that emotional outbursts had been staged by Nadia Puente’s family in front of the jurors to sway them. The same jury convicted DeHoyos Sept. 20 of first-degree murder with special circumstances and later found that he was sane at the time of the crime.

The last person executed in California was Aaron C. Mitchell. He died in the gas chamber on April 12, 1967.

The last person in Orange County sentenced to death was mass murderer Randy Kraft in 1989. He is one of 21 Orange County criminals on death row.

Tired from the drawn-out case, prosecutor Gannon slumped in a chair in the back of the courtroom after the proceedings ended Wednesday. He commended the jury for listening carefully and would only say he thought the sentence was “appropriate.”

Defense attorney Grimes said DeHoyos had expressed regret and remorse for what he had done, as well as sorrow for the family of the little girl he murdered. He said his client had suffered from an “organic brain disorder” that rendered him incapable of controlling his actions. Grimes said DeHoyos was once hit in the head in a fight, hit a windshield in a car accident and was tossed out a two-story window during a fight while he was in the army.

During the three-month trial, DeHoyos once barked and growled at photographers and went berserk when the prosecution played his taped confession to Texas police, upending several courtroom tables.

Grimes said an appeal in the case is automatic. When he appears before Dickey at the December sentencing, he said, he will ask for a new trial, a new sanity hearing and, if those are rejected, he will ask the judge to reduce the sentence to life without parole.

Sara Puente, surrounded by television cameras and reporters, said she was pleased with the verdict.

“I know my baby is proud of me and proud of all her family I am surrounded with,” she said. “I know the jurors were blessed since they were selected. . . .”

DeHoyos’s daughter, Sandra, was accompanied by her mother, Gloria Lara, Richard DeHoyos’ ex-wife, both of whom came from San Antonio to be near him in the closing days of the trial.

Lara said, as had her daughter, that Richard DeHoyos was mentally disturbed.

“I’ve never thought he was all there. He’s always had a problem, even back in high school. People just knew that,” she added, clutching her daughter tightly.

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this story.