Kingpin, 2 Others Convicted of Drug House Murders

A jury Thursday found reputed Pacoima drug lord Stanley Bryant and two underlings guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances that could result in the death penalty for all three.

Bryant, 37, was convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court on two counts of first-degree murder in the Aug. 28, 1988, shootings of a woman and 2-year-old girl at a heavily fortified house in Lake View Terrace where, according to testimony, money from crack cocaine sales was counted.

Last month, the jury found Bryant guilty on two other first-degree murder counts for the shooting deaths of two drug rivals.

Bryant, Le Roy Wheeler, 26, and Donald Franklin Smith, 37--all ranking members of the 200-member “Bryant family” cocaine ring, according to prosecutors--also were convicted Thursday of the attempted murder of a year-old boy.

Because the jury found that the three men committed multiple murders, the case will soon enter a second phase in which the panel will be asked to recommend to the judge whether Bryant and the others should receive the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But first, the jury will continue to deliberate the charges against a fourth defendant, Jon Preston Settle. According to a juror’s note that Superior Court Judge Charles E. Horan read aloud in court, the panel is deadlocked 11-1 on at least one of the murder counts against Settle.

Killed in the Aug. 28, 1988, Lake View Terrace shootings were convicted “Bryant family” hit man Andre Armstrong, 31, and his partner, James Brown, 43. The two men, who prosecutors said had threatened to steal business from the cocaine ring, were ambushed inside a cage-like metal security door at the Wheeler Avenue house and fired upon repeatedly by assailants armed with shotguns and semiautomatic pistols.

Also killed were Loretha Anderson, 23, of Seaside and Chemise English, 2, who were waiting for the slain men in a parked car.

Wheeler was identified as having shot the woman and child. Wheeler, who according to testimony idolized Bryant and called him “Uncle Stan,” was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder.

The jury found Smith guilty of first-degree murder in the slayings of the two men, but convicted him only of second-degree murder in the slayings of the woman and child, finding that he did not premeditate those murders.

The verdicts came after the judge read a note from a juror who expressed reluctance at returning a first-degree murder conviction against Settle if it could “send him to the gas chamber.” Horan instructed the jurors not to consider possible punishments at that stage in the trial, and ordered the verdicts recorded.

Afterward, prosecutors and defense attorneys left the courtroom without commenting.

During testimony, Bryant, Wheeler and Settle all acknowledged involvement in the drug business but denied being at the house at the time of the killings.

Bryant and Wheeler tried to lay blame on the prosecution’s star witness, former “Bryant family” member James Franklin Williams IV, who worked at the Wheeler Avenue house. Testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution, Williams placed the four defendants at the house during the shootings.

During the trial, prosecutors told of the ring’s phenomenal growth, its iron grip on the streets of Pacoima and its reputation for ruthlessness.

At the time of the shootings, according to testimony, the family had become a sophisticated, interstate cartel that controlled rock cocaine distribution in the northeast San Fernando Valley.