LONG BEACH : No-Contest Plea in Fatal Carjacking of 2 Students

One of two men accused in connection with the carjack killings of two Marymount College students pleaded no contest Friday to receiving stolen property and being an accessory after the fact of robbery.

Alberto Reygoza, 20, of Long Beach, will be sentenced to 32 months in prison on July 29, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore. Reygoza and the accused gunman, Raymond Butler, were charged following the March 25 shooting deaths of Takuma Ito, a Japanese citizen, and Go Matsuura, a U.S. citizen born in Japan.

Reygoza and Butler, 19, had been scheduled to appear in court Monday for a preliminary hearing. The hearing will go on as scheduled for Butler, who is charged with two counts of murder with the special circumstances of murder during a robbery and multiple murder, Moore said.

Butler also faces two counts of robbery and two counts of carjacking, she said. Each count also alleges that he used a handgun in the commission of the crimes.

The killings made headlines in Japan, where fatal shootings are rare and tourism interest in the United States is high. The killings prompted President Clinton to express his condolences to the grieving families and U.S. dignitaries to rush to counter charges in the Japanese news media that Southern California is a gun-infested crime zone.

Ito and Matsuura, both 19, were each shot in the back of the head about 11 on a Friday night in a supermarket parking lot on Western Avenue.

The suspects fled in Ito’s 1994 Honda Civic, which was found the next day in San Pedro.

Both victims were attending Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes but were hoping to transfer to film schools at USC or UCLA.