Oldest of 3 Sisters Found Guilty in ’91 Slaying of Neighbor : Northridge: The teen-ager is convicted in fatal stabbing of librarian who had befriended the three girls. ‘This court has never seen such malice,’ the judge says.

The oldest of three teen-age sisters accused of killing an elderly neighbor at a Northridge condominium complex was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder, closing a case whose brutality and senselessness shocked the upscale west San Fernando Valley community.

The 17-year-old girl was convicted for her role in what Sylmar Juvenile Court Judge Morton Rochman called a “heinous killing,” the Nov. 20, 1991, slaying of 62-year-old Meta Murphy, a librarian who had befriended the three girls.

According to trial testimony, the sisters conspired to kill her and then bragged about it to friends.

Testimony indicated that the two younger sisters--now 13 and 16--sneaked into Murphy’s apartment and stabbed her 11 times, then dumped her body in a utility closet and covered it with coats. The eldest sister remained at home next door, where she turned up the volume on two stereos to drown out Murphy’s screams.

A motive for the crime remains unclear.

“For some reason,” Rochman said Wednesday, “there exists in the hearts and the minds of (the three sisters) a quantity of evil unknown and unseen. This court has never seen such malice, such an exhibition of lack of conscience.”

The 17-year-old showed no emotion Wednesday as Rochman sustained the murder petition--the equivalent of conviction in Juvenile Court. The girl’s mother, who was sitting at her side, shook her head slowly from side to side, as in disbelief.

Rochman set sentencing March 31. The 17-year-old could draw a sentence of from 25 years to life. But state law holds that someone convicted in Juvenile Court can remain behind bars only until their 25th birthday.

The middle sister has already been convicted of first-degree murder. She was sentenced Jan. 28 to the California Youth Authority.

The younger sister pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder. She is due to be sentenced April 21.

The names of the three girls have been withheld because of their ages. In November, 1991, when Murphy was killed, the girls were 12, 15 and 16.

Murphy, a librarian at the Panorama City branch of the Los Angeles City Library, lived alone in her condominium in the 18500 block of Mayall Street.

The sisters lived next door with two brothers and their parents. The girls often played in the grassy area outside their front doors, and it was not uncommon, neighbors have said, for Murphy to treat them to sodas or snacks after school.

Murphy’s body was found by police Nov. 21, the day after the killing. Co-workers at the library reported her missing when she failed to show up for work.

“Originally, this case had been very shocking to the community--that three young girls could commit such a brutal crime,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Mitch Robins, who investigated the killing.

“This should be reassuring to the community to know that the system still works,” Robins said Wednesday. “These girls deserve to be punished for killing a helpless, elderly lady who did nothing to provoke them--and because they have shown absolutely no remorse, no respect for human life.”

The case had remained unsolved until June, when an acquaintance of the girls told police that she had heard the two older sisters boasting about the slaying.

The eldest sister had been “able to avoid detection for a good seven months on this case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Rubinson, the prosecutor in the case, told Rochman on Wednesday during closing arguments.

“If she had never told anybody, she would have gotten away with it,” Rubinson said. “She wasn’t smart enough to do that.”

The 17-year-old’s case turned on the testimony of three teen-age friends who said they had heard the three sisters talking about the crime.

Testifying near the close of the six-day trial, the 17-year-old said she knew about the killing because she had seen her middle sister come home with blood on her clothes. But, the elder girl said, she had nothing to do with the act.