Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Parolee Faces Trial for Murder in Bomb Death : Crime: With special circumstance allegation, Scott Hamby could face the death penalty if he is convicted of killing a Pearblossom woman and injuring her son, 4.

A parolee accused of building and planting a pipe bomb that killed a woman collecting cans in the desert was ordered Friday to stand trial for first-degree murder with special circumstances, meaning he will face the death penalty if convicted.

Antelope Municipal Court Judge Eric Helgesen ruled there was sufficient evidence linking Scott Douglas Hamby, 32, to the explosion that killed Lynn Standish, 33, of Pearblossom and seriously injured her 4-year-old son May 20.

The judge ordered Hamby, who is being held without bail, to return March 10 for arraignment in Lancaster Superior Court, where his trial will be held.

The ruling came at the end of a preliminary hearing that began Thursday. A prosecutor presented witnesses who testified that Hamby, whose nickname is Blast Off, placed something in the desert prior to the explosion and asked a friend to dispose of blasting caps after Standish was killed.

Thomas Hinkle of Pearblossom testified that Hamby was living with a girlfriend in a trailer on Hinkle’s property at the time of the explosion. Shortly after the blast occurred, Hinkle said, Hamby asked him not to tell sheriff’s deputies that he had been there.

Hinkle’s girlfriend, Virginia Sinclair, testified that she accompanied Hamby during the pre-dawn hours of May 20, during which Hamby stopped and removed something from his truck.

Sinclair said she thought Hamby was dumping trash in the desert and urged him not to do so. She testified that Hamby later said he had left “a surprise” in the desert, one that he would retrieve later.

“What was it?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Ogden asked.

“It was a bomb,” Sinclair replied.

During cross-examination by defense attorney Lorn Aiken, Sinclair acknowledged that she did not see a bomb.

“You don’t know what Mr. Hamby did in the desert, do you,” Aiken asked.

“At that time, I didn’t know,” Sinclair replied.

Investigators said Standish, a single mother, apparently set off the bomb by accident while collecting cans with two of her sons. Her youngest son, Michael Hepburn, suffered a severe leg wound in the blast but has recovered.

Her 9-year-old middle son, Jeffrey Standish, was not injured and was able to flag down a passing motorist for help. The motorist, Millard H. Sanford, testified that a man he identified as Hamby rode up to the scene on a motorcycle but did not stop to render aid.

As part of the sheriff’s probe of the incident, investigator Joe Holmes testified he searched a shed used by Hamby. There, he said, he found shotgun shells and fireworks tubes that apparently had been cut or pried open to remove their powder. Outside another home, Holmes said he seized blasting caps that the defendant allegedly asked his friends to dispose of after Standish was killed.

Deputy Harmon Watters, an arson-explosives specialist, testified that Standish was killed by a pipe bomb containing a mixture of gunpowder and fireworks powder. “My opinion was that she was holding the device when it exploded,” Watters said.

Several witnesses testified that Hamby abruptly disappeared after Standish’s death.

Defense attorney Aiken said Hamby wanted to avoid contact with sheriff’s investigators because he was wanted for a parole violation.

On May 31, the district attorney’s office filed murder charges against Hamby, who was then a fugitive. Prosecutors filed it as a potential death-penalty case because Standish was killed as a result of an explosion.

On Nov. 20, Hamby, accompanied by his attorney, surrendered at Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.