Hiding Out Irks Murder Case Witness : Mother: Woman who turned sons in and fled her home in fear says she needs a job. She calls the county’s protection program inadequate.

After turning in her two teen-age sons to police for murder and fleeing her home early this year because their gang member friends vowed to kill her, Marilyn Ross seems to have found the good life.

The former Azusa woman brought her young daughter back from hiding out of state and the two now live rent-free in a roomy home with a back-yard pool. Movie producers have phoned to discuss deals.

The William Morris Talent Agency represents her, and an attorney is working to get a book written about her story.

But the picture is far from idyllic.

“I need a job,” Ross said recently as she opened the door on her nearly empty refrigerator. So far, all she has been able to find are temporary stints.

Her footsteps echo on the bare wooden floor of her sparsely furnished living room. She points to a mattress on the floor in a corner of one room that serves as her bed.

She has had to fend off criticism from people who questioned her motives and whether she has been a fit mother. And she has nightmares of being murdered herself--tracked down like the hunted person she is, to be shot and killed on the street.

Although Ross counts herself luckier than most crime witnesses who go into hiding, she figures that much of the help came from her own persistent scrambling and from sympathetic strangers.

The county’s witness protection program, set up to aid crime witnesses facing threats, is woefully inadequate to the task, Ross said.

“I thought they were going to hide me,” she said. “I thought they were going to protect me.”

Instead, she had to abandon her misperceptions, as others have before her, and face the reality of the sparse help available. Under the county’s witness relocation program, only first and last month’s rent on a new apartment are paid.

And outside help has been narrowed, Ross believes--although some people familiar with her case disagree--by a state Assembly bill that takes effect Jan. 1.

The Right to a Fair Trial bill prohibits crime witnesses from receiving payment for information about a crime for one year after the date of the crime or until a final court judgment is reached.

The bill was prompted by revelations that some witnesses in the O. J. Simpson case had sold their stories to the media, and will cut off outside help that crime victim-witnesses might use to sell their stories, Ross said. By prohibiting payment, the state is “asking you to come forth and put your life on the line.” she added.

The crime that changed Ross’ life occurred about 9 p.m. on Feb. 5 when Raj Kumar Sharma, 40, of Covina, a clerk at an Azusa market, was robbed, shot and killed for $72 in cash.

Ross said that five days later, after an argument with his mother, her eldest son, Nicholas, 16, confessed to her that he and his younger brother had killed Sharma. Dumbstruck and fearful, Ross went to police and her days in hiding began. For six months, she called a hotel room home.

But after her story was published in The Times, a dizzying number of calls poured in from television talk shows, movie producers and talent agents, seeking interviews and possible story deals.

Ross was flown to New York City to appear on the nationally syndicated Rolonda Watts television show. On camera, she was confronted by her angry mother, Elsie Newman, 61, the boys’ care giver for most of their lives.

Newman insisted that her grandsons are innocent, called Ross a negligent mother and accused her of abandoning her sons years ago.

Ross has not been in touch with her sons’ father since the boys were infants.

After initial interest, the movie deals dried up, said Rick Rosenthal, an attorney representing Ross. Producers who came forward wanted to pay Ross only a small sum and then shop around her story to the major studios on speculation, Rosenthal said.

He said that Ross’ race--she is African American--adds to her difficulty, limiting the commercial appeal of her story. Rosenthal said television producers prefer stories about perfect “Brady Bunch” families. Stories about minorities are a harder sell, he said.

At the same time, hotel staff and others who had helped Ross said they began to resent her and accused her of making too many demands. They questioned her credibility and motives.

Some talked of money they lent Ross, which she never paid back. Some called her ungrateful and complained of the star attitude she seemed to take on in response to media coverage.

But Sheriff’s Sgt. Rey Verdugo, the detective assigned to the Azusa murder case, attributes Ross’ behavior to stress.

Crime witnesses “suffer indignities, threats, having to relocate, get a new job, and all they’ve done is follow the law and do the right thing,” he said. “And, suddenly, the whole world turns upside down for them.”

Ross finally escaped her prolonged hotel stay when an ex-social worker heard her story on a news radio show and offered to put her up temporarily in a vacant rental home the person owned.

“The cops were going into their own pockets to help her, and there was nothing in place for someone who had done the honorable thing,” said the former social worker, who requested anonymity. “I decided to see if I could help.”

Ross now has a temporary job and her daughter is enrolled in school. She hopes to find a permanent job to begin paying rent when her free stay ends in November.

Meanwhile, her younger son, a 15-year-old, was convicted June 9 in Pomona Juvenile Court of the Azusa murder and robbery. He was sentenced to confinement in the California Youth Authority until age 25.

Her elder son, Nicholas, is scheduled to be tried as an adult later this month. Ross will probably be a key witness against him, said Verdugo and the county prosecutor assigned to the case.

Cary Rudman, an attorney in Sacramento who helped fashion the crime victim payment bill for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, said Ross will be able to receive money for her story because the new law will probably not apply to her. Ross’ involvement with the criminal justice system began before the law was proposed and goes into effect, he said.

Although he said he sympathizes with someone in Ross’ situation, he added that testifying in court should not be a paid financial arrangement but a basic responsibility of citizenship.

“Testimony is voluntary,” he said. “It’s not designed to be a quid pro quo, predicated on money.”

Her role as a witness and the threats against her life made her eligible for help from the county’s witness relocation program. Ross, like many others, mistakenly thought the program would bring comprehensive help: personal security guards, a legal change of identity, relocation in a place far away, help with housing, food and a job.

But the program provides only first and last month’s rent, usually in an apartment in Los Angeles County. Yearly, only about 120 people qualify for even this limited help countywide, officials said.

“The system doesn’t make allowances for the business of day-to-day life,” Verdugo said. “The state, the feds, the county, the local government, no one is set up to pay those bills or to say, ‘Let me get you a job.’ . . . The reciprocity is not there.”

Still, Ross was luckier than most.

For six months, Compton police kept her in a city-owned hotel with free room service. Police Chief Hourie Taylor said Ross knew someone on the Compton police force who put her and her daughter in the hotel for a night. Compton police then agreed to extend her stay as a favor to the Sheriff’s Department, which was investigating the Azusa murder, Taylor said.

But the days stretched into months, Ross said, when repairs to her disabled van came to a standstill. The county witness relocation program paid two months’ rent on a new apartment for her. Sympathetic acquaintances in the hotel paid for her daughter’s air fare out of state. But without transportation, Ross said, she was unable to move from the hotel and lost the apartment.

At one point, Ross said she was down to $100 in cash and all her belongings--pots and pans, clothes and a personal computer--piled in her non-working vehicle.

Because of the threats against her, she said she feared returning to her apartment, her family and her former job as a real estate manager. Friends who knew of her plight were reluctant to help, she added.

“They said, ‘Gee, Marilyn, you can’t come here. They might shoot up my house. Can I send you 10 dollars?’ ” Ross said.

To get by, Ross did odd clerical jobs and eventually landed a temporary job working on a political campaign.

Now, no one knows her past in the quiet, suburban community where she lives. She said she walks in anonymity to the grocery store and feels safe.

But still she worries.

“I dreamed I got shot,” she said, recalling the nightmare in which a gunman appeared as she was unloading groceries.