Man Faces Trial in the Murders of His Parents : Justice: The defendant insists the La Puente business owners were victims of gang violence. Jury selection will start Monday.

When authorities entered the Valinda home of Arthur and Faye Staten last October, they found blood splattered on the hallway floor, the kitchen counter and six feet up the dining room walls.

Faye Staten, 43, lay dead on the dining room carpet. She had been stabbed 18 times. Her husband, Arthur, 44, was sprawled on the floor of the master bedroom. A single .38-caliber gunshot wound to the back of the head had taken his life.

The scene was made even more grisly by graffiti found spray painted on the hallway mirrors. “E.S.D. Kills,” the white letters read, a reference to a neighborhood Latino gang.

The scene Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies found that day was reminiscent of the infamous Tate-La Bianca murders of August, 1969, in which mutilated bodies and painted slogans captured the public imagination and outrage.

It was too reminiscent, investigators later concluded, after they found a souvenir book featuring Los Angeles Times front pages of major news events lying open on a coffee table. “Ritualistic Slayings, Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered” screamed the main headline on the page. The story told of slogans written on the walls in blood.

Three months later, the couple’s son, De’Ondre Staten, 25, was arrested for the Oct. 13, 1990, slayings of his parents. His first-degree murder trial is expected to begin Monday with the jury selection phase in Pomona Superior Court.

Staten has been charged by the prosecution with special circumstances--multiple murders and murder for financial gain--that could result in the death penalty, if he were convicted.

He maintains his innocence and insists that his parents were the victims of gang violence in their racially mixed neighborhood.

The defendant, who lived with his parents, said he left home for 15 minutes on a midnight run for food and came back to discover the murders.

But the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary Hearnsberger, claims Staten planned to kill his parents, and did so just minutes after they came home from a 2 1/2-week trip to Egypt.

The motive, said Hearnsberger, was twofold: a $303,000 life insurance policy naming Staten as his parents’ beneficiary and the son’s desire to end their constant pressuring of him to find a job.

The Statens were successful business owners, running a beauty salon and supply store in La Puente, which enabled them to live in a comfortable, four-bedroom home with a pool in the back yard.

Investigators said the defendant had associated with gang members in his youth and had left home. But he returned to live with his parents a few months before the slayings. Although unemployed, Staten was trying to start a rap group called The First Amendment.

There were no witnesses to the murders. So Hearnsberger has built his case on circumstantial evidence that includes:

* The book of newspaper front pages.

* A handprint of Staten’s that was found next to the graffiti.

* Testimony by sheriff’s gang experts that the graffiti was not written in a typical Latino gang style.

* A steak knife found in Staten’s bedroom.

* Testimony that Staten was seen brandishing a .38 caliber handgun a few weeks before his father’s death.

* Cans of white spray paint found in the house that chemically match the paint used in the graffiti.

“Once you have a reasonable number of circumstances, the web just closes,” Hearnsberger said. “(Staten) would have to disprove, or explain away 20 different things.

“And life doesn’t work that way.”

But Staten’s attorney, John Tyre, says the validity of the circumstantial evidence is based on interpretation.

Explanations can be found for much of what will be presented by the prosecution, he said. For example, Staten lived in the house with his parents, so a handprint on the wall would not be incriminating.

As for the other circumstantial evidence, the steak knife had no trace of blood on it, many kinds of paint are chemically similar, and gang writing varies in style, the defense attorney said.

The district attorney’s case “is a reasonable interpretation, but so is mine. And the law says you have to give in if there is a reasonable doubt,” Tyre said. “You have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Further, the defense attorney said, he will argue that Staten had no motive to kill his parents. Indeed, relatives had to remind his client to complete the insurance claim forms, he said.

“He’s not the kind of kid that would have killed his parents,” Tyre said. “He took care of his (mentally disabled) brother when his father couldn’t. He kissed his mother when he would leave the house; they had an extremely close relationship.”

Tyre believes sheriff’s deputies did not pursue tips that could have led to the real culprits, Latino gang members who invaded a black family’s home.

“My argument is, the gang did it,” the defense lawyer said. “They don’t like blacks.”

The case has split Staten’s family.

Faye Staten’s sister, Bobbie Williams, is expected to testify for the prosecution regarding two short phone conversations she had with the defendant the night of the murders.

According to the investigators’ reports, Williams said the defendant was abrupt with her during the first call at around midnight, saying he was going out. She said she phoned half an hour later, and he was still there and still abrupt. She said the behavior was unusual for her nephew.

Meanwhile, Staten’s grandmother, Korea Staten, stands firmly behind her grandson, who she visits once a week in jail. A deeply religious woman, she said the Bible provides instruction on how she should react to the death of her son and the murder accusations against her grandson.

“I’m a Christian; I’m saved,” she said. “The Bible says if you can’t love your brother, who you can see, then how can you love God, who you can’t?”