D.A. Drops Accessory Charge Against Mother

With their star witness facing robbery and other criminal charges, prosecutors Monday dropped charges against a mother accused of throwing away the murder weapon her son used to kill an Oxnard man.

“I’m relieved,” Dolores Terry said of her yearlong legal battle. “I could never understand why they were charging me.”

Investigators also had accused her of driving her son, Zolly Terry Jr., to Los Angeles and moving him into an Inglewood motel. The Ventura County Grand Jury indicted Dolores Terry on a felony accessory charge in November 1994 on the strength of a 13-year-old boy’s testimony, transcripts show.

The boy told the grand jury he gave Dolores Terry the .38-caliber handgun Zolly Terry used in the fatal shooting of Jerome Hurst and the wounding of Vernon Hunter in a Friedrich Lane apartment in October of that year.

The murder weapon has never been found, and Dolores Terry has maintained her innocence since her arrest.

Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. James D. Ellison said he decided to drop the felony accessory charge after learning of the boy’s arrest for robbery last week. The teen has also been accused of lying to police in connection with the robbery, eroding his credibility. “I don’t think a jury would believe him,” Ellison said.

Zolly Terry was arrested at an Inglewood fast-food restaurant in 1994 after police followed family members from Oxnard to Los Angeles.

A judge sentenced Zolly Terry, 22, to seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of involuntary manslaughter for killing 25-year-old Hurst and attempted murder for shooting Hunter.

The jury acquitted Zolly Terry of the more serious charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder after he testified that he fired in self-defense.