SAN DIEGO : Lawyer Calls for Sparing Killer’s Life

In an effort to save convicted murderer Jessie Ray Moffett from the gas chamber, his attorney portrayed him Monday as the victim of an abusive family.

Moffett, 33, was convicted three weeks ago of the fatal 1987 shooting of Glen J. Avery, 67, who was working as a security guard at a Holiday Inn in Kearny Mesa.

Moffett was also convicted of murdering 20-year-old Debra E. Owen at the Linda Vista Recreation Center in 1979.

The same jury that convicted him of those murders is hearing evidence that will help it decide if Moffett should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Maurice Bingham, one of the witnesses called Monday by defense attorney Geraldine Russell, testified that he spent his afternoons in the late 1960s working in Moffett’s neighborhood to help him and other children stay out of trouble.

“Jessie wanted his father to love him, but his father turned his back on him,” Bingham said.

A longtime family friend, Rochelle Simpson, told the jury that the Moffett children lived in fear of their father.

“The thing I remember most were the extension cords,” Simpson said. “I remember once Jesse’s back was bleeding.”