Mistrial Declared in Case of Man Accused in Decade-Old Slaying

A Van Nuys judge declared a mistrial Monday after jurors reported they were deadlocked in the case of a Minnesota man accused of raping and murdering a Cal State Northridge administrator a decade ago.

Shortly after jurors said they were split 7 to 2 for conviction, with three undecided, prosecutors said they almost certainly would retry Jonathan K. Lundh, 44, in the April 27, 1982, slaying.

Patty Lynn Cohen, assistant to the dean of CSUN’s School of Arts, was last seen walking toward her car that evening in the parking lot of the Burbank Holiday Inn after attending a self-help seminar.

In a case that drew widespread press attention at the time, Cohen’s nude body was found five days later in the trunk of her car in a North Hollywood alley.

Lundh, who represented himself in the six-week Superior Court trial, showed no emotion at the jury’s deadlock, casually striding out of the courtroom with bailiffs, who returned him to custody.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip A. Rabichow said that unless witnesses are unavailable, the case will be retried, adding, “I am disappointed but not discouraged.”

After being dismissed by Judge John Fisher, several jurors who voted with the majority said that no one piece of evidence was persuasive for any of the five in the minority.

“It was a different problem for each one. It’s been a frustrating two, three weeks” of deliberation, said a juror who voted to convict and who did not want to be identified.

Even jurors who voted to convict said they were puzzled during deliberations because the case had been inactive for nine years, for which no explanation was introduced into evidence.

Lundh, who was arrested on car theft charges the day after Cohen’s body was found, immediately became a suspect in the killing when police noticed that he resembled a widely circulated sketch of a mustachioed, knife-wielding man seen loitering at the hotel that night.

But prosecutors refused to charge Lundh with Cohen’s murder, saying that witnesses’ identifications were inadequate.

However, they charged him with attempting to abduct another woman from the same hotel parking area minutes before Cohen disappeared.

Lundh was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in that case and sentenced to four years in prison, returning to Minnesota after serving his time.

In 1989, the Cohen case was reopened by police, who re-interviewed witnesses. This time, the district attorney’s office agreed to prosecute.

At the trial, no physical evidence linked Lundh to the murder. But four women identified Lundh as the man, dressed as a maintenance worker, seen stalking women at the hotel that night.

Lundh argued that police, under pressure to solve the case, had leaned on the women to identify him.

Lundh also contended that, based on their own testimony, the women did not see the man long enough to positively identify him.

Much of the trial focused on the testimony of former teacher Rain Slook, who said that she saw Lundh driving Cohen’s Ford Mustang on Sherman Way in Van Nuys the morning after the woman disappeared.

Slook, who died in January but whose videotaped testimony was played at the trial, said at a 1982 lineup that she was not positive Lundh was the driver.

But at a 1992 hearing, Slook, then dying of cancer, said she was positive it was Lundh and had not firmly identified him a decade earlier because she felt “that no one was going to believe me.”

Several jurors said that panel members disagreed on what weight to give Slook’s statements, adding that “how you felt about it was usually based on how you reacted to other pieces of evidence.”