Man to Stand Trial in 1972 Slaying : Crime: After hearing of reported confession, judge orders 65-year-old to be tried for mother-in-law’s strangulation death.

A police detective testified Friday that the daughter of a 65-year-old retired aerospace worker charged with the 1972 strangulation murder of his mother-in-law told police her father admitted to her 23 years ago that he committed the crime.

Relying primarily on that statement, a Van Nuys Municipal Court judge ordered Omer Harland Gallion--who walked into court with the aid of a crutch--to stand trial for murder.

Gallion is scheduled to be arraigned April 14 on a single count of murder in Van Nuys Superior Court. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

The body of Catherine Marion Halgren, 62, was found Sept. 16, 1972, in her North Hollywood house in the 4300 block of Cahuenga Boulevard by her daughter, Ramona, who was married at the time to Gallion. The Gallions later divorced, and Ramona died several years ago.

Gallion has entered a not guilty plea, and claims to have been at a bar with his brother at the time of the murder. Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Cohen said Gallion may have been at a bar, but that he left long enough to commit the murder.

During a preliminary hearing that lasted less than 30 minutes, LAPD Detective Oscar Carballo, who reopened the case in November, 1992, testified that he interviewed Gallion’s daughter, Catherine Gallion, in February.

“She told me that her father had told her that he had killed her grandmother,” Carballo said. “She also said that he told her that he had forgotten to wipe some of his fingerprints from the hallway.”

Carballo said Gallion confessed to his daughter shortly after the killing. The daughter also told police that her father admitted strangling Halgren with his hands, tying a clothesline around her neck and binding her hands behind her back.

Cohen would not say why the daughter waited 23 years to tell police about her father’s confession.

A 74-year-old retired LAPD Scientific Investigations Division employee now living in Idaho also testified that on the day of the slaying, he collected fingerprints off a closet door near Halgren’s body. Those fingerprints later matched Gallion’s.

Gallion was first arrested in February, but was released after prosecutors refused to file charges, citing insufficient evidence. He was arrested again on March 21.

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In an earlier interview, Cohen suggested that the motive for the killing was financial, noting that Gallion divorced his wife after they had spent all the money from her mother’s life insurance policy.

Outside of court, Gallion’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Philip R. Boche, said he was still reviewing evidence in the case and could not comment. Boche asked the court for special medical attention for Gallion, who has diabetes and an unspecified medical problem with his feet.

Although state law currently allows capital punishment for murder, Gallion, if convicted, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole because the crime was committed 23 years ago, before the current death penalty was in effect.