Jury Backs Life Sentence in Burbank Slayings

PASADENA — A Superior Court jury recommended Wednesday that a Burbank man be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole for shooting two women to death and trying to kill two others in a dispute that began over pruning a rosebush.

The jury could have advised Judge Thomas N. Stoever to condemn Thomas Paul Humenik, 27, to death when the judge sentences Humenik on Dec. 10.

While the jury’s action is not binding on the judge, such recommendations are usually followed, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rash, who prosecuted the case. “Though I feel death would have been an appropriate punishment, I think the jury was a very conscientious group and I accept their decision,” Rash said.

Humenik’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

On Oct. 21, Humenik was convicted on one count each of first- and second-degree murder, and two counts of attempted murder. He was also convicted of a special circumstance charge of committing multiple murders.

That rampage arose out of a January, 1992, dispute in which Humenik accosted Don Boyd, a 75-year-old neighbor, while Boyd was pruning rosebushes in a planter between the two houses. Humenik accused Boyd of trespassing on Humenik’s property.

Less than an hour after he was found guilty of misdemeanor battery in the incident, Humenik grabbed a semiautomatic rifle with a 30-round magazine and fired 25 shots, killing Boyd’s 73-year-old wife Merle and Sheila Young, 45. Wounded in the attack were Geraldine Correll, then 70, and Elfriede Brauchle, then 48.