FULLERTON : D.A. Seeks Death Penalty in Parents’ Slaying Case

The Orange County district attorney’s office will seek the death penalty for a 23-year-old Fullerton mechanic accused of killing his parents and brother last year and setting their bodies on fire, an official said.

Although Edward Charles III is young and has no previous record, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Grant said Thursday that the crimes he is accused of “still show a kind of disrespect for life” that merits the death penalty.

Grant said his superiors also considered the fact that Charles is accused of offering an undercover officer $150,000 and three horses to kill his grandfather.

Charles is charged with killing his father, Edward Charles Jr., 55, an engineer at Hughes Aircraft; his mother, Dolores Charles, 47, a self-employed typist, and his brother, Danny, 19, an up-and-coming opera singer and college student.

Autopsies showed that the father and son had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer-like instrument, and that Danny had been stabbed repeatedly, though not fatally.

Police said the body of Dolores Charles was so badly burned they were unable to determine how she was killed. Charles pleaded not guilty last November, and his trial is scheduled to begin this Nov. 25. Deputy Public Defender Ronald Klar said he was “disappointed but not surprised,” by the prosecutor’s decision to seek the death penalty.

Klar said Thursday he thought his client’s youth, good record, and connection to the victims would persuade the district attorney not to seek the death penalty.

“I had hoped they could see that, but I understand the other side,” Klar said.

No motive has been revealed in the case, although the defendant was a beneficiary to a life insurance policy.