Jury Urges Death Penalty in Ninja Slayings

A jury recommended the death penalty Wednesday for a onetime a Los Angeles police officer convicted earlier this year of pulling the trigger in the so-called ninja murders of a Brentwood couple on Yom Kippur in 1985.

If Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper accepts the recommendation, it will be the second death penalty against Steven Homick in four years. Homick, 52, was convicted in Nevada in 1989 of killing a Las Vegas woman, her maid and a delivery man and was sentenced to death. That case is now on appeal.

The Nevada killings occurred just three months after Homick shot Gerald Woodman, 67, and his wife, Vera, 63, as the couple returned home from a dinner on the Jewish High Holy Day, prosecutors told the Los Angeles jury during the penalty phase of Homick’s latest trial.

Homick had been hired as an assassin by the two adult sons of the Woodmans, the prosecution said, because the brothers despised their father and hoped to collect on their mother’s $500,000 insurance policy.

The case got its name because witnesses said the gunman was wearing all black, including a hood, which brought to mind the garb worn by ancient Japanese ninja martial artists.

The Los Angeles jury deliberated a day before recommending death for Homick, who was a Los Angeles police officer for about 18 months in the 1960s.

Homick’s brother, Robert, who also was convicted of murder, is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

The Woodman brothers also stood trial in the slayings.

The jury that convicted the Homicks deadlocked against Neil Woodman, 49. Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon said no decision has been made on whether he will be retried.

Woodman’s brother, Stewart, 43, was convicted in 1990 and agreed to testify against the others to escape the death penalty.

Steven Homick is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 22. Cooper can either accept the jury’s recommendation or modify it to a life term.

The jury’s action Wednesday capped a long, complex case that had two other defendants, hundreds of witnesses and mounds of evidence. The first trial lasted more than a year; the second 10 months. Two men who were convicted of also taking part in the elder Woodmans’ deaths were sentenced to a life term and 25 years, respectively.

Earlier this week, as the jury deliberated on its recommendation for Homick, Judge Cooper replaced one juror because the woman refused to consider the death penalty. At that point, the jury was stalled 11-1 in favor of death.

The removal of the holdout angered Homick’s lawyers, who say they will appeal. Cooper’s action “coerced a verdict of death from the jury,” said James H. Barnes, one of the defense lawyers.