ANAHEIM : Again, No Verdict in Carjack Killing

An Orange County Superior Court jury deadlocked Tuesday in a case against an Anaheim man charged with murder in one of the county’s first fatal carjackings, the second time a jury has been unable to reach a verdict.

Scott Rembert, 22, was convicted of kidnaping last spring in connection with the June, 1992, slaying of Joseph Andrew Kondrath, but two separate juries have been unable to decide on a count of murder and special circumstances that mandate a life sentence without parole.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Brent said a hearing is scheduled for Nov. 18 before Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald to determine what will happen next.

“I’m fully prepared to try again,” Brent said, noting that a majority of the jurors told him they wanted to convict Rembert of murder.

Rembert’s defense attorney could not be reached for comment. The defendant faces a life sentence on the kidnaping conviction.

The victim, a 23-year-old Rancho Santiago College student, was last seen leaving for his job at a supermarket at 4 a.m. on June 10, 1992. Prosecutors said he was grabbed from behind the wheel of his car at gunpoint in front of his Anaheim home and forced into the trunk. He was robbed of his wallet, which contained only about $1, and later shot in the head as he lay crouched in the trunk of his car pleading, “Don’t hurt me,” according to court records.

Rembert is one of three defendants convicted in connection with the slaying. Shaun Burney, 20, of Tustin was sentenced to death in September for his role as the triggerman, while Allen Dean Burnett II, 20, of Anaheim, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The three committed the carjacking because they wanted to use the car for a drive-by shooting and killed Kondrath to eliminate him as a witness, prosecutors have charged.