MAYWOOD : Jury Urges Death in Killings of Police Officer, Grocer

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury Monday recommended the death penalty for Edgardo Sanchez Fuentes, the convicted triggerman in the fatal shootings of a Maywood police officer and a Van Nuys grocer during a 1992 crime spree.

But the same jury reached no decision on the fates of Sanchez’s companions, Benjamin Alberto Navarro and Jose Contreras, who also were convicted of the murders and a number of armed robberies.

Sanchez, 23, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 16 and it is still possible that Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor will reject the jury’s recommendation and sentence him to life in prison without parole.

Sanchez’s lawyer, Public Defender Jim Coady, said Sanchez had been willing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence but prosecutors rejected the offer because the victims included John Hoglund, 46, the first Maywood police officer ever killed in the line of duty. Hoglund was shot as he was checking a grocery store where a burglar alarm had gone off.

Also killed during the trio’s string of holdups was Lee Chul Kim, 49, who ran the Woodley Market in Van Nuys.

Navarro, 24, and Contreras, 22, are to appear in court Jan. 20 for a hearing on whether the penalty phase of their cases should be retried before a new jury.