Jury Recommends Death for Child Killer : Courts: Mother’s stories of abuse fail to influence decision in Panah case.

Jurors recommended the death penalty Monday for convicted child killer Hooman Ashkan Panah, saying they were deeply moved but unswayed by his mother’s suicide threats or by her testimony that she had abused him.

After four days of deliberations, the jurors said they held Panah, 23, responsible not only for the murder of second-grader Nicole Parker, but also for the “vilification” of his own mother, Mehri Monfared.

In a desperate bid to save her son’s life, Monfared, a former cable television talk show host and producer, had sacrificed her reputation on the witness stand. The 47-year-old refugee portrayed herself as an abusive and controlling parent who beat, belittled, slept and showered with her only son.

She said she slapped, bit and threw a knife at him when he was a child. She cut off his hair and hit him with shoes. She called Panah a derogatory Farsi word for homosexual and refused to believe him when he claimed he was molested by a grandfather. Later, she showered and slept with Panah, admitting she felt attracted to him because he resembled his father, whom she divorced when Panah was 3.

“Hooman was raised by a mother from Dante’s ninth level of hell,” said defense attorney Robert Sheahen, who unsuccessfully tried to convince jurors to spare Panah’s life because a harsh upbringing and “unnatural” relationship with his mother left him mentally ill.

“The man is getting what he deserves based on what he did,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter S. Berman said. “The essence of this abuse story came from Mr. Panah and his mother.

“It’s entirely possible there was some abuse of Mr. Panah,” but, the prosecutor added, “I doubt it was the picture of brutality painted on the witness stand. A great deal of it was an exaggeration designed to invoke sympathy, and the jurors saw through it. “

The six men and six women on the jury said their deliberations were not influenced by Monfared’s threat from the witness stand that she would take her own life if the jury’s verdict was death.

“Suicide is her decision,” said one juror. “If she does it, she does it. We didn’t do it to her.”

He added that the testimony showed a common thread: that both Panah and his mother threatened suicide “at any stressful situation for this family.”

Defense attorney Sheahen said Monday that Panah backed out of a plea negotiation that could have spared his life. Sheahen said Panah refused to plead guilty after his mother said she would commit suicide if he did so.

Sheahen said he told the mother she was “driving the nails into his coffin by not letting him plead guilty.”

“The woman just doesn’t get it,” Sheahen said. “She’s going around telling everybody there’s bias against Persians. She had an opportunity to save his life, and she didn’t take it.”

In December, after the jury found Panah guilty of first-degree murder, sodomy and related sex offenses, Monfared overdosed on pills, according to testimony.

Panah slashed his wrists and swallowed a bottle of over-the-counter pain medication following Nicole’s murder. He was hospitalized in 1988 after another suicide try that followed a quarrel with his mother.

In the eyes of the jury, the mother ultimately was a more sympathetic figure than was her son.

“The greatest injustice perpetrated in this trial, other than the murder itself, was the vilification of Mrs. Monfared,” the jury foreman said in a prepared statement.

“Whatever mistakes she made, she made them honestly and out of a genuine and loving concern for her son,” he added. “She did not raise her son to be a killer, and the responsibility for that crime lies with Hooman Panah and not with her.”

As the jury returned the death verdict, Panah, a 23-year-old former Pierce College student and department store clerk, briefly touched a copy of the Koran to his forehead but otherwise showed no reaction. Later, as the jury was polled, he shook his head from side to side, then kissed a small prayer book he carried in his left hand.

Meanwhile, the two mothers whose inconsolable grief dominated the penalty phase of the trial sobbed in their seats as a dozen deputies lined the courtroom.

Lori Parker, mother of the victim, accidentally kicked a wooden barrier as tears streamed down her face. Later, she told reporters she was glad justice had been done for her daughter’s sake.

“I really wanted the death penalty,” she said. “I didn’t ever want it for me. I wanted it for Nicole. I wanted the most we could get for her.”

Monfared was escorted from the courtroom by deputies. Outside in the hallway, she repeated her allegations that favoritism and prejudice played a role in the case.

“God bless my lovely and innocent son, Hooman,” she said. “There was no evidence he touched this girl. . . . Everybody here in this court treated me as a dog. They treated (Parker) like a queen.”

Like every death penalty case, Panah’s will be reviewed automatically by the state Supreme Court.

Kreigler scheduled sentencing for March 6.

Ever since she disappeared from the courtyard of her father’s gated apartment complex in Woodland Hills, Nicole’s killing has tapped deep emotions in the community.

Even seasoned prosecutors and police investigators were affected, Berman said.

Joel Price, the lead detective for the Los Angeles Police Department, said the emotional drain of the case played a role in his decision to leave the homicide unit and work in community relations.

There were tears in Price’s eyes as he hugged Lori Parker after the verdict.

“We won. We won,” she told the detective.

Nicole was 8 when she disappeared on Nov. 20, 1993, and was the sort of child who charmed everyone she met. She loved softball and playacting, and the movie “A League of Their Own.”

Her mother told the jury that she “sparkled.” A brother described her as having “a gift.”

Hundreds of people joined the search for Nicole, which ended 36 hours later when her bruised body was found stuffed in a suitcase hidden under laundry in Panah’s closet.

The trial, which began in early December, brought the grief and lives of two mothers into sharp focus.

“It must be terrible,” one juror said. “Their pain must be unbearable.”

Parker told jurors her family was devastated by Nicole’s murder. One son abandoned his college plans and contemplated suicide. Another changed schools and began dabbling with drugs and alcohol. Her former husband, Edward, blamed himself.

Monfared lost 15 pounds and no longer works in television. She told jurors her son was “everything” to her, begging jurors not to “take him” from her. “I will kill myself,” she vowed.

Parker said Monday that later, in the evening, she would look toward the sky from the balcony of her bedroom, as she does every night, and talk to Nicole. This time, she said, she would have good news.

“I’m going to tell her, ‘We did it, baby. We got the most we could get,’ ” Parker said, her voice choking with emotion.