Killer of Girl, 8, Sentenced to Execution : Trial: Judge affirms jury’s recommendation, calling case ‘a horror beyond description.’ Defendant insists he is innocent.

A Van Nuys Superior Court judge sentenced convicted killer Hooman Ashkan Panah to death Monday, bringing a bitterly fought and wrenching child murder case to a close.

As a dozen Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies ringed the courtroom, Judge Sandy R. Kriegler affirmed a jury’s verdict that Panah, a 23-year-old former Pierce College student, should be executed for sodomizing and murdering Nicole Parker, 8, who disappeared Nov. 20, 1993, while visiting her father’s Woodland Hills apartment complex.

As he pronounced sentence, Kriegler described the case as one of the most difficult he has handled. He called it “a horror beyond description.”

The judge was unmoved by Panah’s rambling, 17-page statement to the court, in which he referred to himself as a suffering, suicidal “young boy” soon to “be awarded the status of a dead boy.”

“I am not a murderer and I’m not a child molester,” Panah insisted, adding, “I have never had any sexual desires for kids.”

After rejecting a defense appeal for a new trial, Kriegler said: “This case is different, probably because it was a young girl who was killed. It’s different because everybody felt she was safe where she was.”

The judge added that the grief felt by the Parker family, as well as Panah’s “unspeakable conduct,” contributed to the emotions stirred by the crime, and later, by the trial.

As they have for months, the families of the killer and victim traded insults again Monday in and out of court.

As Panah was led from courtroom, his mother, Mehri Monfared, turned to the victim’s mother and shouted, “Mrs. Lori Parker, you’d better go to find the real murderer. Your crying is finished. Your acting is finished.”

Panah’s two-month trial began late last year and climaxed Jan. 23 with the jury’s recommendation that he be put to death. Several times during the trial, Lori Parker expressed her desire that Panah be executed.

In December, after her son was found guilty of murder, Panah’s mother was carried from the courtroom, wailing that her son was innocent and was being persecuted because he is Iranian.

And so it was again on Monday.

“I would like you to know I hate Hooman Panah,” Lori Parker told Kriegler. “He abducted, molested, raped, sodomized and robbed my little girl, Nicole, of her precious little life.”

Nicole, a second-grader, disappeared from the courtyard of Ed Parker’s gated apartment complex in Woodland Hills. Hundreds of people joined the search for her, which ended 36 hours later when her bruised body was found stuffed in a suitcase hidden under laundry in Panah’s closet.

Lori Parker added Monday in court: “In the last 15 months, I have been searching for a name to label Panah--is he an animal, an insect, a monster? Those names are too good for him since animals and insects only kill for survival.”

The judge abruptly cut her off, admonishing her to avoid “name-calling” and other inflammatory statements.

A few minutes later, however, Parker said she hoped Panah dies “at the hands of other inmates,” like Wisconsin serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

The victim’s brother, 18-year-old Travis Parker, asked the judge why he should have to wait 10 to 20 years for the state “to get around to” executing Panah.

“Why can’t any one of these deputies draw his or her service revolver and shoot Mr. Panah in the head a few times?” Parker asked. “I’m sure any number of these deputies would be able to carry out this task and are willing to do so.”

In turn, Panah claimed he had been beaten by police and fellow prisoners. He also said police taunted, threatened and tortured him.

Panah had slashed his wrists and swallowed a bottle of over-the-counter pain medication after Nicole’s murder.

He described the efforts to revive him as a form of torture. Later, he said, he was confined to a windowless room in the jail hospital, wearing only a diaper.

He said other inmates put a dead mouse in his bed and attacked him.

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Still, he said he would accept his fate.

“What can you do to me that I haven’t already tried to do to myself?” he asked, referring to his history of suicide attempts. “My life must be sacrificed here, and it already is of very little value. I know the only alternatives here are death or victory.”

He turned to the Parkers, who sat in the front row of the courtroom, and said, “To whomever wants to see me dead, here I am with my heart to give you as a gift.”

He then told the Parkers he loved them.

Monfared, 47, a former Farsi-language TV host here, left the courtroom wailing that her son had been framed and that the court was corrupt and racist. During the trial, she portrayed herself as an abusive and controlling parent who beat, belittled and slept and showered with her only son.

“My son is innocent,” she said Monday outside the courtroom. “Your government destroyed my country. Now, you destroy my people.”

Lori Parker said about Panah: “I think death by multiple sodomy would be appropriate. This can never be an eye for an eye matter since Nicole was a priceless human being and Panah is completely worthless.”

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