Killer Claims Innocence to Jury Weighing Death Penalty

Ignoring his lawyer’s advice, Sean Darnell Slade told the jurors who convicted him of murder and who will decide whether he dies for the crime that he is innocent and therefore feels no remorse.

“I can’t say I have remorse about Eddie Maldonado because I didn’t know him,” Slade testified Wednesday, referring to the armored car guard he was convicted of shooting to death during a 1992 holdup. “I didn’t take his life.”

The jury is expected to begin deliberations today. Slade, 27, shot Maldonado in the back of the head during a robbery at a Home Depot store in San Fernando.

In sometimes rambling testimony, Slade said he was raised a Christian and has respect for human life. He did admit that he gunned down a man in 1987 during an argument that prosecutors say involved drugs.

Pausing to control his emotions, Slade said he was sorry, and took responsibility for the slaying. “I’m not God,” Slade said through his tears. “I can’t just take somebody’s life. That’s something I have to live with.”

Slade served four years for that crime, and killed Maldonado only 25 days after his parole.

As he did during the guilt phase of his trial, Slade blamed his predicament on the mother of his first victim, who called police and reported that Slade was the man depicted in a composite drawing circulated after the 1992 shooting.

“I feel sad for you (because) you got caught up in it,” Slade told jurors.

In an emotional exchange, Slade attacked Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Jonas, calling him a pathological liar and a prosecutor who overdramatized the case.

“I compared you to Rush Limbaugh, but the difference is Rush Limbaugh relies on the facts,” Slade said to Jonas.