Man Gets Life Plus 17 Years in Slayings of Neighbors : Violence: Thomas Humenik’s lethal rampage originated in a dispute over the pruning of a rosebush.

A Burbank man who shot two women to death and wounded two others in a rampage touched off by a neighborhood dispute over the pruning of a rosebush was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional 17 years to precede the life sentence.

Declaring that Thomas Paul Humenik, 27, displayed a high degree of cruelty toward the most vulnerable victims, Pasadena Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Stoever stopped just short of issuing the maximum allowable sentence of 19 years and four months in addition to life.

Last October, a jury found Humenik guilty of one count of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, a verdict that made Humenik eligible for the death penalty.

However, in the penalty phase of the trial, the same jury recommended the lesser sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, precluding Stoever from issuing the death penalty.

Although the consecutive term technically has no effect on a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rash said it would add insurance against Humenik being released should sentencing laws change in the future.

The killings occurred on the same day in 1992 that Humenik, who lived with his mother and brother on Keystone Street, was found guilty of misdemeanor battery against Don Boyd, his 75-year-old next-door neighbor. Boyd charged that Humenik accosted him while Boyd was pruning roses in a planter between their houses. Humenik was placed on probation and fined $810.

According to testimony in the murder trial, soon after Humenik returned home from court, he went into his bedroom to get a semiautomatic rifle as the four neighbors gathered on Boyd’s patio.

Entering the neighbors’ back yard, Humenik shot Sheila Young, 45, Geraldine Correll, 70, and Elfrieda Brauchle, 48, through a screen enclosure, then followed Brauchle and Boyd’s wife, Merle, 73, into the house. Trapping Merle Boyd in a bedroom, he shot her repeatedly. Young and Boyd died.

At sentencing, Public Defender Paul Enright argued that Humenik was entitled to some leniency because he was suffering from a mental or emotional condition that reduced his culpability.

“Clearly, everybody who saw Mr. Humenik indicated he was somebody who was very disturbed,” Enright said.

Rash countered that Humenik was “mad,” rather than disturbed.

“That’s not a mental or emotional condition that reduces culpability,” Rash said “It’s a motive for committing a crime.”