Prosecutors Say Car Dealer’s Fast Lifestyle Led to Slaying

William Wayne Nix’s arrogance and lavish lifestyle led him to orchestrate the killing of his former car salesman, prosecutors said Monday, while defense attorneys argued that the same wealth and braggadocio allowed him to be framed for the slaying.

As the murder-for-hire trial wrapped up after a week and a half of testimony, Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns told jurors that the former car dealer’s attitude of “wanting it all” was his undoing.

“The profile of Will Nix that has emerged from this case showed him as a person awash in self-importance and a person corrupted by power and money,” Burns told the jury.

“A person who was living life in the fast lane . . . who could flaunt the drug laws of the United States and California and a person who was hungry for attention, needed to be the object of attention.

“And in his quest to have it all, he had forgotten about his fellow human beings.”

Nix, 38, showed no emotion as Burns depicted him as a “Slick Willie,” who lied to his mother in a recorded telephone conversation about what he knew of the killing of Sal Ruscitti. The Leucadia resident and car salesman was a party in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Nix’s parents and was in the process of filing a suit against Nix and his Pomona car dealership.

Nix gave one of his mechanics, Paul Gonzalez, $10,000 to arrange the Sept. 17, 1988, slaying and paid out $4,000 more after the actual triggerman demanded it, Burns said.

Gonzalez was a “broken, wretched man, a murderer and an adulterer,” but his testimony that Nix asked him to kill Ruscitti was corroborated by other evidence, Burns said. Gonzalez has admitted being an accomplice in the killing.

The day before the killing, a Department of Motor Vehicles document shows, Nix provided Gonzalez with a car to drive from the Pomona area to Leucadia to commit the crime, Burns said. Gonzalez later purchased the car for his 18-year-old son, who also participated in the killing, Burns said.

Telephone records showed that Gonzalez made a two-minute call to the Pomona dealership on the day of the killing. During the call, Burns contended, Nix gave the go-ahead for the killing.

David Hernandez, who allegedly had supplied cocaine to Nix, told jurors that, just before the slaying, he loaned Nix $10,000, money that Burns argued was used to pay for the killing.

Two of Nix’s close advisers, including one who is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy in the killing, testified that Nix had bragged about killing Ruscitti before and after the killing, Burns said.

But defense attorney William Fletcher told the jury and Vista Superior Court Judge J. Lester Morgan that they should discount testimony from several key prosecution witnesses who had pleaded guilty to being part of Ruscitti’s slaying in exchange for reduced sentences and who had lied to two grand juries.

“In their mind, the reason that they testified was because they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in prison,” Fletcher said.

It was ostentatious displays of wealth such as Nix’s Lamborghini Countach and habit of lavishing gifts on his confidantes that lured Gonzalez into planning the killing on his own in an attempt to become part of Nix’s inner circle of friends, Fletcher said.

“Why would Will Nix trust Paul Gonzalez? This is a man who said, ‘I had never done anything illegal for Will Nix before.’ Why, in such a dastardly, evil thing as plotting a murder, would Mr. Nix trust this guy?” Fletcher asked the jury.

Gonzalez paid off his son-in-law, Albert Vargas, with a car, drugs and forgiveness of a debt to commit the killing, Fletcher said. Another person, “Tonto,” whom the prosecution says was the actual triggerman, may not even exist, Fletcher said.

Nix had no motive to kill Ruscitti, since no legal proceedings had begun against either Nix’s parents or Nix himself at the time of the killing, Fletcher said.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations today.