SWAT Officers Kill Slaying Suspect

A convicted wife abuser held his former girlfriend and her ex-husband hostage for several hours before killing the woman and fleeing to a North Hollywood motel where he was shot to death by a SWAT team Wednesday, Los Angeles police said.

Jeffrey Wade May, 40, who was on parole on a burglary conviction, was killed at the motel after officers evacuated it and surrounding houses and tried without success to talk May into surrendering, police said.

The dead woman was identified as Margaret Leisa Leithe, 34, of North Hollywood. Police said Leithe was shot several times in the upper torso about 12:20 a.m. when she tried to flee her rented home in the 6400 block of Bonner Avenue after struggling with May over his gun.

A man in the house with Leithe, identified as her ex-husband, Joel Ricketts, 41, fled during the struggle and phoned police, authorities said.

A passing patrol officer later spotted May’s car at the motel Wednesday morning and the SWAT team was called in after homicide detectives from the North Hollywood Division unsuccessfully tried to persuade May to surrender, police said.

Residents of the 25-unit, $21-a-night motel at 10750 Magnolia Blvd.--which did not appear to have a name--said police negotiated with May for three hours before the man was killed. “They tried very hard to get the guy to come out without any violence,” said Wesley Tegeant, 35, who was able to hear the police talking to May from his room three doors away. Tegeant said he was not evacuated until about 30 minutes before May’s death because his room was so close.

He said police offered to bring May a two-way radio and a telephone to be able to talk because the motel’s rooms do not have phones.

“They asked him if he wanted to call his parents in Washington,” Tegeant added.

He and other witnesses said negotiations were carried out by shouting back and forth, between the motel parking lot and May’s room.

May stopped responding when police asked how many guns he had with him, Tegeant said.

About 2:20 p.m., tear gas was fired into the room to force May outside, said Lt. William Hall, supervisor of the Officer Involved Shooting Unit.

May opened the door, apparently seeking fresh air, but stood in the doorway holding a .22-caliber handgun to his head, Hall said.

Police tried to talk to May--who had spoken of suicide when he held Leithe and Ricketts hostage--but he did not respond, Hall said. When May pointed his gun at SWAT Officer Ralph Morten, who was standing in a doorway two rooms away, Morten fired his .45-caliber pistol once, hitting May in the head and killing him, Hall said.

“It’s not unusual--suicide by police,” Hall said.

May had a criminal record that included four convictions for spousal abuse, Detective David Alfred said. Other convictions include carrying a loaded firearm and burglary, for which he was on parole.

May and Leithe, known as Leisa to her friends, had dated for several years and had a child together, a 15-month-old boy who was in the house but not harmed, police said.

But they had become estranged and Leithe was so frightened of May, who had moved to Washington state and had been threatening her, that she asked her former husband, Ricketts, to move in with her, police said.

Neighbors described Leithe as a friendly, outgoing woman, but said they had heard frequent fights between her and May in the past.

Leithe had two other children--girls, ages 8 and 13--but they were staying with a grandmother Tuesday night, police said.

Police said that when Leithe and Ricketts returned home Tuesday night from an open house at Chandler Elementary School, which one of her children attends, May was waiting for them with a gun and took them hostage.

Over the next four hours, according to police reports, May periodically beat Leithe and told his hostages he was going to “end it all” by killing Leithe and then himself.

May ordered Leithe to tie Ricketts with tape. When she didn’t do it to his satisfaction, May put his gun down to improve the bonds. Leithe grabbed May’s gun, but he attacked her and she ran into the front yard, where May shot her several times, apparently in the back, police said.

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said, “I heard this scream, like when an animal is dying . . . and then two shots.”

Neighbor Dorothy Johnson said she saw Leithe run from the house with a man following six or seven feet behind.

“She ran down the walk, she was screaming. I heard her yell, ‘Call 911!’ ” Johnson said. “Then I heard one shot. I heard her scream, then I heard two more shots.”

May fled in his 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass and Ricketts freed himself and ran to the house of Leithe’s mother, Roberta Brose, a few houses away on Bonner Avenue, where he telephoned the police, authorities said.

Hours later, a patrol car spotted May’s car at the motel, alerted detectives, and the SWAT team moved in about 11 a.m.

Leithe worked four years as a receptionist at the Los Angeles law firm of Stockdale, Peckham & Werner. “She’ll be missed as an employee, as an individual and as a friend of everyone who was here,” administrator Bob Radke said.

Following the killing, employees at the law offices discovered a piece of poetry in her desk, apparently written to her children. It read:

“You are the poems I dreamed of writing,

“The masterpieces I longed to paint.

“You are the shining stars I searched for in my hopeful quest for life fulfilled.

“You are my children.

“Now with all things I am blessed.”

Times staff writers Jim Herron Zamora and Jocelyn Y. Stewart contributed to this story.