Man Says Women He Killed Had Plot to Murder Him : Courts: The prosecutor scoffs at the defendant’s claim of self-defense. Two people died and a third victim was injured in the 1990 North Hills shooting.

A 31-year-old former sheet metal worker testified Tuesday that he killed his former girlfriend and her sister and wounded a man because they were scheming to murder him.

A weeping Dean Roger McGrath, who has admitted the killings but pleaded innocent to first-degree murder, said in Van Nuys Superior Court that he gunned down the three at their North Hills duplex July 11, 1990, to stop attempts on his life.

But during cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sera Boyadjian repeatedly scoffed at the self-defense claims of McGrath, who faces a possible death penalty in the slayings.

“This woman sitting in her house in her T-shirt and panties at 1:30 in the morning getting ready for bed was a threat to your life?” the prosecutor demanded.

Boyadjian suggested instead that McGrath was a longtime abuser of his girlfriend, Marleen Taylor, and that the killings were revenge for her decision to end their relationship.

McGrath, who in court admitted firing a shotgun at the back of Taylor’s head as she fled the room, insisted: “I never wanted to kill Marleen.”

But then he added that he shot the fleeing Taylor because, “I didn’t want her to go out the door because she was trying to kill me.”

McGrath said that Taylor, 32, and her sister, Kathleen Fein, 30, had been trying for some time to kill him.

He said that Taylor had poisoned his food and that Taylor and Fein were responsible for several instances when bullets narrowly missed him while walking outside or sitting in a car.

McGrath said that he had not reported the attempts on his life to police, saying that authorities would not believe him because he had twice been convicted of beating Taylor.

McGrath acknowledged that after shooting Taylor, he reloaded, found Fein in a bedroom telephoning police and shot her, then reloaded and shot her again.

He testified that he then ran after Anthony DeLuca, 31, who was living with Taylor and Fein and had fled the home on McGrath’s arrival.

According to DeLuca’s testimony last week, McGrath chased him about one block, then shot him in the back, reloaded and shot him again, injuring his back, leg and arm.

When Boyadjian suggested that DeLuca was shot because he had replaced McGrath in Taylor’s life, the defendant replied, “I don’t remember thinking nothing like that.”

He said he shot DeLuca because “Tony was getting involved in this attempt on my life.”

Taylor’s two children, a 2-year-old boy fathered by McGrath and a 4-year-old boy fathered by DeLuca, were asleep when the attack occurred and were not injured, authorities said.