Motorist in Chase Guilty in Woman’s Death

A man in a van who struck and killed a woman at a bus stop while fleeing from police was found guilty of first-degree murder Thursday by a Van Nuys jury.

The verdict means that Steven Ray Pickard, 33, will be sentenced April 23 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Superior Court jury rejected defense claims that the police pursuit was flawed and determined that Pickard killed Reyna Martinez Duarte while he was fleeing from authorities after he burglarized a convenience store.

Duarte was sitting on a bus stop bench on De Soto Avenue in Canoga Park on the morning of Nov. 20, 1991, when Pickard’s van slammed into the 23-year-old housekeeper.

An expert testified that Pickard’s minimum speed was 59 to 72 m.p.h. Officers involved in the chase said they thought Pickard was traveling at more than 80 m.p.h.

The incident began when a group of undercover investigators watched Pickard and three accomplices load a cache of stolen cigarettes into a van at a store in Calabasas.

Authorities did not make arrests at that time because the burglary was revealed only when the van drove away from the store and officers saw that a door had been removed. But officers in a marked police car, responding to a radio report, spotted the van about seven miles east on the Ventura Freeway.

When Pickard was ordered to stop, he fled at high speed until striking Duarte about three miles away.

Despite defense claims that the pursuit led to the deaths, jurors exonerated police of wrongdoing.

“The police really did the best they could under the circumstances,” jury member Tom Finocchiaro said.

Committing a murder during the immediate flight from a burglary is one of about two dozen special circumstance charges that carry a minimum penalty of life in prison without parole. Prosecutors may seek the death penalty in these cases, but they ruled that out in Pickard’s case.

“Justice was done,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Carole Chizever said.

Pickard’s conviction came during a second trial in his case. Last year, another jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of convicting him of murder.

The three other men arrested with Pickard all pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and burglary. Under a plea agreement, all will receive sentences of six years and eight months in state prison at sentencing April 23.