Man Receives 4 Life Terms in Quadruple Slaying

A 23-year-old man was sentenced Monday to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for the execution-style murders of four men during a robbery in which he netted virtually nothing.

David Brinson was convicted in October of shooting Robert Marks, a 59-year-old retired tavern owner, and three other men on June 12, 1990, in Marks’ garage apartment on South Burnside Avenue in the Mid-Wilshire district.

Brinson faced the death penalty, but the jury could not agree on the sentence.

The prosecution agreed not to retry the penalty phase in exchange for Brinson’s promise not to appeal his case. Superior Court Judge George Trammell sentenced Brinson on Monday.

“That will save the taxpayers a lot of money” that otherwise would have to be spent on impaneling a new jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Teri Schwartz said.

The families of the victims were satisfied with the arrangement, Schwartz added, because “they know he won’t be getting out of prison in this life.”

At the time of the murders, Marks’ neighbors told police that the retiree had lived quietly in the neighborhood for years, but had recently begun to have streams of visitors. They suspected he had begun selling drugs, they said.

Witnesses testified that Brinson thought Marks was a high-level cocaine dealer and went to his apartment with a gun and two accomplices seeking money and drugs.

After Brinson ransacked the residence and found only a small amount of marijuana, the witnesses said, he shot each of the four men in the back of the head as they lay face down on the floor of a bedroom.

The other victims were Marks’ roommate, Gene McCullars, 28, and visitors Celedinio Ligtas, 33, and William Terry, 27.

They had gathered at the apartment to watch a basketball game on television. A fifth man who arrived later found the bodies.

Schwartz said she too thought Marks may have been selling drugs but not on the level that Brinson imagined.