Teen-Ager Guilty of Beach Murder

A Superior Court judge has found an 18-year-old New Mexico man guilty of murder in the stabbing death of a Northridge woman last year at Zuma Beach.

Judge David Perez also found Guillermo Bustos, 18, guilty of robbery and special circumstances of lying in wait and intent to commit great bodily injury. The ruling on Tuesday came after two days of testimony in a non-jury trial, which included taped confessions by Bustos, in Santa Monica Superior Court.

Bustos will be sentenced Nov. 16 and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of Jacqueline A. Kirkham, 43.

A second defendant, Michael Loretto, 18, will be tried separately.

On Tuesday, a second taped statement Bustos gave to investigators after the May 28, 1991, killing was played in court.

As in a similar statement played Monday, Bustos explained that he, Loretto and a third person, who has not been charged, came to California from New Mexico after they burglarized a bar and authorities were looking for them.

After spending three nights at Zuma Beach while the third man, Jason Alexander, 18, tried to locate his grandfather in Camarillo, the teen-agers had no money and needed a ride home, Bustos said. Loretto had talked the previous day about killing someone and stealing a car, Bustos said.

Then Loretto saw Kirkham arrive in a 1990 Nissan 240SX sports car, Bustos said.

“I was sleeping most of the time,” Bustos said, while Loretto watched Kirkham on the beach for nearly three hours before she went to the women’s restroom.

“Michael said, ‘Let’s do it,’ ” Bustos told investigators.

Loretto followed Kirkham into the restroom and whistled for Bustos after she began to struggle.

“I grabbed the knife,” Bustos said, “Michael said, ‘Do it, do it,’ and I stabbed her twice.”

The teen-agers stole Kirkham’s car and returned to New Mexico. They were arrested there June 5, 1991, after the car had been in an accident, investigators testified.

Also testifying Tuesday was Gina Robinson, a friend of Alexander’s from Reseda, who said she brought the teen-agers hamburgers at Zuma Beach on the day of the killing. She identified Bustos and Loretto from photographs, as well as a photograph of her with Alexander taken that day.

Kirkham’s fiance, Steve Williams of Canoga Park, identified two of her rings that the teen-agers had pawned in Nevada and that investigators had retrieved.

Williams, a self-employed real estate appraiser, said Tuesday that he is “not the sort of person who engenders an enormous amount of hate in my heart,” but that he, Kirkham’s two daughters, ages 25 and 17, and her ex-husband will write the judge to “recommend the stiffest penalty possible.”

“The only reason there is no death sentence” is because Bustos was a juvenile at the time of the crime, he said.

“I just feel the message in this is that other people who assume that a lot of things are safe in L.A., like the beach, need to be thinking about protection,” Williams said.

In his closing argument, Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss told Judge Perez, “I had the incredible luxury of having two confessions. We have statements from Bustos that he knew there was a plan where Loretto wanted to kill someone,” Giss said.

“They waited two or three hours and Bustos grabbed a knife knowing that Loretto was in the bathroom” struggling with Kirkham, Giss said.

Defense counsel Irwin Pransky said, “The facts are against me.

“What makes this case so aggravating, and why the people are asking for life without the possibility of parole, is the location,” he told Perez. “When people go to the beach for recreation, the furthest thing from their mind is that they’re going to get killed.”