A Body of Evidence--but No Body--in Murder Trial of Former Teacher

The murder trial of a former Santa Monica teacher suspected of killing a retired Glendale accountant whose body has never been found is under way in Northern California.

Stanley Alan Hershey, 49, is accused of killing Gordon T. Johnson, 62, who disappeared in the fall of 1989 while on the road as a vagabond in his expensive motor home. Johnson’s only company was a mixed Labrador puppy named Rocky, who also is missing.

Authorities think that Johnson was murdered and his body dumped in Shasta Lake, although repeated searches of the waters have failed to yield the remains.

The jury trial in Shasta County Superior Court in Redding is expected to take at least two months, attorneys said.

Hershey, a former teacher at the Wilshire West private school in Santa Monica, and his wife, Jan Fine Hershey, 40, were convicted in 1990 on federal charges of stealing Johnson’s motor home and life savings. Hershey was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison and his wife, who was described during the trial as being duped by her husband to join in the crimes, is serving five years.

Jan Hershey, who also once taught at the Santa Monica school, had stood steadfastly by her husband during the federal trial, but now “feels hurt and betrayed,” said her attorney, Russell Swartz of Redding. She is expected to be a key prosecution witness in the murder trial.

During a preliminary hearing last year, Jan Hershey testified for more than three hours about events leading up to and following Johnson’s disappearance--including the couple’s belief in “channeling,” or relying on spirits to guide their lives.

The Hersheys’ child, a daughter, was born shortly after the federal trial ended. She is being cared for by her maternal grandparents in New York state, officials said.

Jan Hershey has been serving her term at an East Coast prison, near her parents’ home, but was transferred earlier this month to a Shasta County jail cell to await her husband’s trial. No state charges have been filed against her.

More than 50 other prosecution witnesses, including local and federal investigators from six states, are expected to testify.

Hershey’s defense attorney thinks the prosecution will find it difficult to prove its case.

“They have a lot of witnesses, but they have no witnesses at all that can testify that Mr. Johnson was murdered,” said defense attorney Jack Suter. “They have no physical evidence there was a murder. . . . There’s no crime in this country to disappear.

“It’s not a type of usual murder case . . . so they are going to have a more difficult row to hoe.”

Suter acknowledged that his client’s wife would be a key prosecution witness. He plans to tell jurors that Jan Hershey is testifying only because of the agreement she made with prosecutors.

“She’s received an awfully sweet deal,” Suter said.

Although the case is considered unusual because no body has been found, Shasta County officials said similar cases have been successfully prosecuted. They said at least 23 bodies of fishermen and recreational boaters are believed to lie somewhere on the floor of Shasta Lake, the state’s largest man-made reservoir. Because of the depth of the lake (currently more than 500 feet at the dam), and the cool water temperature (about 10 degrees Celsius near the bottom), bodies rarely rise to the surface, they said.

The bizarre tale of Johnson’s disappearance, and the subsequent arrest of the Hersheys, unfolded early in 1990 after authorities found that the Hersheys had parked Johnson’s $219,000 luxury motor home at a vacation resort in Paradise, Ariz.

The couple were arrested in Las Vegas on March 1, 1990, after authorities traced the withdrawal--through automated teller machines and fund transfers--of $120,000 of Johnson’s life savings to the Hersheys. The funds were spent for trips to Tahiti and Las Vegas and shopping sprees, such as the purchase of expensive silk, Italian-made men’s suits, investigators said.

During the federal trial in Las Vegas, authorities testified that they found ledgers in which the couple had followed the so-called New Age practice of “automatic writing,” in which spirits are said to guide people’s hands in spelling out their destiny.

Previous testimony at the federal trial, and at the preliminary hearing in Shasta County, indicated the Hersheys met Johnson at a motor home park in Minnesota, followed him to a campground in Oregon, and finally to Shasta Lake, where Stan Hershey’s father resides.

Although a judge in the federal trial said the Hersheys’ activities “pointed a strong finger of suspicion” at them in the suspected murder of Johnson, the crime of murder is not a federal offense and was not considered in that proceeding.

Authorities spent months trying to determine where the alleged slaying might have occurred and which jurisdiction would handle the prosecution.

Investigators knew from evidence that Johnson had disappeared Oct. 15 or 16, 1989, somewhere along the relatively isolated 300-mile route of U.S. 97 between Bend, Ore., and Redding. They also learned that on Oct. 16, Stan Hershey allegedly rented a boat at Shasta Lake and on the same day had parked Johnson’s motor home in Redding.

Jan Hershey testified in the preliminary hearing that she had fixed dinner for Johnson and her husband Oct. 15 and that, later that night, she saw her husband leave Johnson’s motor home. She said she “noticed that there was an odor that I described as a wet blanket, a wet dog’s blanket.” She said her husband explained that Johnson was lending them his motor home, his Suzuki four-wheel-drive vehicle, and access to his savings account to help them on a spiritual mission.

“I believe I’m guilty of what would be called ‘willful blindness,’ ” she testified.

In a court stipulation a year ago, Shasta County officials dropped allegations of special circumstances--murder for financial gain and lying in wait--that could have led to the death penalty should Stan Hershey be convicted, but they are seeking a sentence of life in prison. Jury selection began last week and the first prosecution witnesses could take the stand as early as today.

Johnson, a bachelor, worked as an accountant at a subsidiary of Glendale Federal Bank, where co-workers said he was a fastidious, punctual and diligent employee who had long planned to travel about the country. Immediately after retiring in April, 1989, Johnson sold his Glendale home of 27 years and a dilapidated Volkswagen car and bought the 40-foot motor home and Suzuki. Co-workers gave him the puppy as a retirement gift.

After his divorce from his first wife, Stan Hershey, a former teacher at San Quentin State Prison, worked briefly in 1987 at Wilshire West, a school for troubled and learning disabled teen-agers. There he met Fine, a veteran teacher and counselor who holds master’s degrees in special education and educational psychology.

Friends and co-workers described Fine as “the consummate pro.” Mark Mitock, owner-director at Wilshire West, in a 1990 interview said, “She had the interest of the kids at heart. She worked hard, was very caring and worked well with both parents and people in the community.”

Stan Hershey, who also holds a master’s in education, later spent a year with the Los Angeles Unified School District as a teacher of emotionally disturbed students. The couple moved to New Orleans in 1988, where they married.

Times correspondent Tommy Li contributed to this story.