Man Gets Life in Prison for Stabbing 2 Glendale Men to Death : Murder: Marvin Edward Johnson III, called ‘cold, callous, calculating,’ will have no chance of parole.

A man convicted of stabbing two Glendale men to death to show his devotion to his lover and to satiate his fascination with death was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Marvin Edward Johnson III, 22, of Anaheim, was found guilty of first-degree murder by a Pasadena Superior Court jury on June 7. Prosecutors contended during his 10-day trial that Johnson felt no remorse about the crimes, and presented as evidence several letters that he wrote to other inmates while in jail, boasting of the killings.

“He’s a very cold, callous, calculating murderer,” said Glendale Police Detective Larry Cobb, who investigated the case. “Neither of the victims was ever a threat of any kind to him. They were killed to show his loyalty to another person and to enhance his relationship with that person.”

On the night of Nov. 23, 1992, police were called to a duplex in the 1100 block of North Allen Avenue and found Thomas L. Patrick, 20, dead of multiple stab wounds on a nearby street corner. Patrick’s roommate, Shane Morgan, 22, was found slain outside the door of their apartment.

A third man who lived in the apartment, Stephen (Tracy) Bryan, told police that as he was arriving home from work he had seen Johnson, his friend and co-worker, assaulting Patrick on the sidewalk. About an hour later, police arrested Johnson as he drove by, casually observing the crime scene.

According to court testimony, Johnson, who worked as a clerk in an Orange County law office, had met Bryan at a bathhouse and become infatuated with him, lavishing him with gifts, landing him a day job at the law firm and urging him to become his roommate. The two dated, but Bryan didn’t share Johnson’s feelings, nor his affinity for medieval lore and the occult, court records show.

Johnson offered to help Bryan in a dispute with his roommates by killing them and even put two knives under a bed at the apartment, but Bryan did not believe him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Loveman.

On the night of the killings, Johnson visited Morgan and Patrick, pretending to wait for Bryan to come home. But when the two men went to sleep in separate rooms, Johnson stabbed each one repeatedly in the neck. Both men died as they tried to flee and Johnson, remaining calm, drove to a nearby store to buy Band-Aids and alcohol for cuts on his fingers, Loveman said.

“Marvin Johnson is very intelligent, but he had reached a point in life where he had totally reversed values: good was evil and evil was good,” Loveman said. “He had no empathy for living things.”

In the letters presented to the jury, Johnson described the crime: “I have gotten these idiots to fall asleep--in different rooms, no less, and killed one as quiet and easy as you please and hacked up the body . . . “

In one letter, Johnson said he tortured living things because he was “terrified of death.”

Johnson’s attorney, Seymour Applebaum, contended the murders were not premeditated, but committed in the heat of passion, and unsuccessfully urged the jury to convict him of second-degree murder.

“He [Johnson] lives in a sort of fantasy world. He’s bright, but very immature,” Applebaum said Wednesday. “That doesn’t negate his responsibility or the fact he should know right from wrong, but I don’t believe he had the kind of mature consideration that you need for premeditated murder.”

Applebaum said Johnson saw himself as a “knight-errant,” rushing to save Bryan from being “outed.”

Applebaum also said Johnson will likely appeal the judge’s sentence, which calls for consecutive life terms. An appellate lawyer will be appointed to the case by the state, he said.