GLENDALE : Man Bound Over for Trial in 1981 Slaying

A 52-year-old man whose ex-wife implicated him in a July, 1981, Topanga Canyon killing has been bound over for trial, officials said.

Mitchell Lowell Mitnick of Encino appeared Tuesday before Glendale Municipal Judge Barbara Lee Burke, who ordered the defendant to be arraigned Aug. 11 in Pasadena Superior Court.

Mitnick faces one count of murder in the July 3, 1981, shooting death of Robert Allen, 48, of Los Angeles. The salesman is also charged with the special allegation of committing the crime during a robbery, which could result in the death penalty if he is convicted, prosecutors said.

Investigators learned of Mitnick’s alleged connection to the killing after the March probation violation arrest of the suspect’s ex-wife, Michelle Brooks. The woman, who used the alias Holly Hoffman at the time, told detectives that her ex-husband once mentioned killing a man 12 or 13 years ago and dumping his body in Topanga, police said.

During the three-day preliminary hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Collier called on Glendale Police Investigator Tom Kuh to testify about his interview with Mitnick’s acquaintance, David Spire. Kuh said Spire showed police where the body was dumped and acknowledged that “Mitchell blew that guy’s brains out.”

The investigator also said Mitnick and Spire had met the victim near the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles, where the two allegedly tried to buy drugs from another man. Allen came up to them and tried to pull a “Jamaican switch” fraud scam by soliciting money from the defendant to recover a larger amount at a phony location, authorities said.

Mitnick’s attorney, Sherman M. Ellison, contended that it was actually Spire who pulled the trigger, not his client, and that police coerced the man to blame the killing on Mitnick.

After the hearing, Burke also denied Ellison’s request to set bail for the defendant.