LOS ANGELES : Gardener Gets Life Term in Murder of Woman, 78

A part-time gardener was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for robbing and murdering an elderly South-Central woman who had hired him to do her yard work.

The sentence imposed on Huey Ferguson Jr. by Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith was automatic after a jury convicted him of the Jan. 22, 1993, murder of Ruth Isabel Roberts. Because the panel found true the special circumstance allegations of murder committed during a robbery and murder committed during a burglary, Ferguson could have faced the death penalty. But prosecutors chose not to pursue it and instead settled for life in prison without the chance of parole.

Prosecutors contended during the weeklong trial in January that Ferguson, who worked for Roberts as a part-time gardener, went to the woman’s home about 7 p.m. the night of the murder. A neighbor testified he saw Ferguson pacing back and forth in front of the woman’s home about half an hour or so before worried neighbors entered the residence and found her body.

Ferguson, who was convicted of a Louisiana armed robbery in 1974 and a drug-related offense, had been doing yard work for Roberts for about two years and had worked for her on the day of the murder.

The 78-year-old woman, known affectionately in the neighborhood as “Baby Ruth,” was stabbed and hit in the face and then strangled.