Waldon Gets Gas Chamber for 3 Murders : Crime: Judge is moved nearly to tears while pronouncing sentence. He says society ‘cannot tolerate the presence of such an evil person.’

Billy Ray Waldon, convicted of murdering three people during a 1985 rampage of rape and robbery, was ordered Wednesday to die in the gas chamber by a judge who said society “cannot tolerate the presence of such an evil person.”

At a hearing marked by more of Waldon’s bizarre courtroom antics, San Diego Superior Court Judge David M. Gill said Waldon unequivocally deserves to die. Moved nearly to tears while describing Waldon’s crime spree, Gill called Waldon a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” who murdered, then calmly ate pizza with a relative while watching a TV report of the crime.

“Only an innocent man could have done that,” Waldon said.

The judge replied: “You are not an innocent man. I’m convinced of that.”

Gill’s verdict affirmed a jury’s Dec. 19 recommendation that Waldon get the death sentence and brought to a close one of the oddest trials in recent San Diego history. The judge ran out of time before going through the legal technicality of formally pronouncing sentence and continued the case to Friday.

Waldon, 40, was convicted Nov. 18 of the murders of Dawn Ellerman, 42, of Del Mar; her daughter, Erin, 13, and Charles G. Wells, 59, of University Heights. He also was convicted of 21 other crimes during a two-week spree in December, 1985, including the rape of an elementary school teacher.

The trial lasted six months. The jury deliberated for less than eight hours before convicting Waldon, who prefers to be called by the Cherokee name of Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah. After more testimony, jurors deliberated for two hours and 27 minutes before urging Gill to impose the death penalty.

Waldon, 40, a former Navy deep-sea diver, maintains he is the innocent victim of an FBI conspiracy.

He represented himself in court, sometimes questioning witnesses and often referring to himself in the third person. Toward the end of the trial, Waldon took the stand and fielded questions from himself.

Waldon built his defense around the contention that because of his affiliations with Native American organizations, the FBI made him the focus of a domestic spying program called COINTELPRO.

During the trial, Waldon often delayed proceedings with lengthy asides about the plight of American Indians. He described himself as peaceful and said he was a member of the World Humanitarian Church.

The hearing Wednesday marked yet another change in his appearance. Shaggy-haired and wearing a goatee when he was arrested in 1986, Waldon began the trial last summer with short hair and a mustache. During the trial, the week he began his defense, he shaved the mustache. He showed up Wednesday with short hair and a goatee.

Waldon complained Wednesday to Gill that he was not allowed to comb his hair and had to wear “unclean jail clothes” to the hearing. He said his wrist hurt. He repeated a claim that he was denied access to 44 boxes of materials proving his innocence. He unsuccessfully asked Gill to let his Swiss wife, Birgitte Sequoyah, 30, sit at the defense table with him.

“He talks but he doesn’t say anything,” one of the several jurors who came to the hearing said later.

Reminding Waldon that this was a death penalty hearing, Gill asked whether he had new evidence pointing to leniency. Waldon complained that Elliot G. Lande, a San Diego County official who oversees the payment of fees to lawyers defending poor people, was in the audience.

Saying that was irrelevant, Gill pressed Waldon to tell him why he deserved mercy.

“Soviet authorities in Moscow offered to provide me evidence of CIA asset Mark Williams,” Waldon said, referring to the mysterious central character in his conspiracy plot. “That evidence alone should be enough to grant me a new trial.”

Gill said it was not enough, adding, “I’m glad you haven’t lost your imagination or sense of humor.”

Finally turning Waldon’s attention to the murders, Gill said there was every reason to impose the death penalty for the three killings.

Waldon was convicted of shooting Dawn Ellerman twice on Dec. 7, 1985, in her Del Mar home, then setting the house on fire. The blaze killed 13-year-old Erin Ellerman.

Gill called Dawn Ellerman’s killing a “cruel, callous, calculated, unmitigated execution.” That “outrageous conduct was magnified by the ferocious and horrendous fire he set,” Gill said.

A few hours after the fire, the evidence showed, Waldon watched TV reports of it while eating a microwaved pizza with a relative, Gill said.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the best thing that’s come to my mind in this trial,” Gill said. Pausing for a moment to hold back tears, Gill said society “cannot tolerate the presence of such an evil person” and “can impose the ultimate penalty to rid itself of the ultimate cancer represented by Mr. Sequoyah.”

Wells, a retired carpenter, was killed Dec. 20, 1985, after Waldon entered his University Heights home while fleeing a robbery scene. Gill called the killing “an atrocious and outrageous murder.”

Waldon remained impassive as the judge recounted the crimes. Later, Birgitte Sequoyah insisted Waldon had been framed and said the sentence was no surprise. “It seemed like the logical continuation of an outrageous injustice,” she said.

Juror Dee Dee Cooper, 38, a secretary who came back to watch Wednesday’s hearing, put it differently. “I think it’s about time Billy Ray got his justice,” she said.