Extradition Sought for 2 Suspects in Shotgun Slayings in Lancaster : Crime: They are in Florida, where they face murder charges for a killing last week. L. A. authorities may wait until the men are tried there.

Extradition proceedings were initiated Tuesday to bring a pair of drifters--described by police as cold-blooded killers--from Florida to Los Angeles so they can face trial in the shotgun slayings of two people in Lancaster.

Following an intense dragnet by police, Harry Jackson Boyd and Terry Tyrone Evans were arrested in St. Lucie, Fla., where they are accused of beating and stomping a popular local handyman to death, authorities said Tuesday.

Even though the extradition proceedings were launched, Los Angeles authorities said they will probably wait until the men are tried in the Florida case before bringing them back to California. Boyd and Evans were arrested Saturday evening, four days after they allegedly killed Robert Lee Williams in a vacant lot next to a grocery store, according to Mark Weinberg, a spokesman for the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department.

Williams, 44, made an insulting remark to a woman who apparently was with Boyd and Evans, spurring them into a violent and deadly rampage, Weinberg said. Several children found Williams’ body lying face down at the scene, and medical examiners later determined he had died when internal injuries caused his lungs to fill with blood, Weinberg said.

“They started with their fists and then stomped him with their feet. And then they left him to die,” Weinberg said. “He died actually by drowning in his own blood.”

Weinberg said the slayings have punctured the quiet calm in the small community on the eastern seaboard of South Florida.

“Even with some provocation, there was certainly no good reason for these two men to kill Mr. Williams,” Weinberg said. “It was shocking--to us and to the community.”

Boyd, 26, of St. Louis, and Evans, 18, of Chicago, were being held without bond at St. Lucie County Correctional Center on second-degree murder charges. They were not charged with first-degree murder because authorities believed they did not intend to kill Williams when they started beating him, Weinberg said.

When police ran a routine computer check, they found the two were also wanted in connection with a double homicide committed in Los Angeles, apparently after a drug deal went bad.

The two men face charges in the March 1 shotgun slayings of Ronald Greene, 22, of Upland and Latonya Walker, 23, of Ontario. Greene was shot once in the back of the head as the four sat in a car outside the Antelope Valley Apartments in the 43400 block of 32nd Street West. He was in the driver’s seat, and the two suspects were sitting in the back seat, authorities said.

Walker fled the vehicle, but Boyd caught her about 15 feet from the car, and Evans walked up and shot her as she begged for her life, authorities said. Evans then dropped the semiautomatic pistol, and walked to a car driven by a third man, who is still at large, authorities said.

Authorities believe the slayings may have been the result of a “drug-ripoff type of situation,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Greene was in possession of about $4,500 in cash at the time of the killing, but the suspects apparently searched his body and found no money because it was hidden in his clothing, authorities said.

Extradition law entitles Florida to prosecute the two men before they are sent back to California.

Barbara J. Moore, chief in charge of extradition services for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, said whichever jurisdiction has the most serious charges pending against suspects is entitled to try them first. Since both Florida and California authorities want the two suspects on murder charges, Florida will try them first because they were arrested there, she said.

In Florida, the slaying of Williams so enraged local authorities that they put 10 detectives--a third of the entire St. Lucie detective force--on a round-the-clock search for his killers, Weinberg said.

Boyd and Evans had lived in Florida more than 10 years ago, and had returned several weeks ago, Weinberg said. They were identified as suspects through informant tips and other means, placed under surveillance until arrest warrants could be obtained and then arrested at relatives’ houses as they hid in closets, Weinberg said.

“He was a popular person, with no known enemies,” Weinberg said of Williams. “So it was important to us to be able to solve this crime.”