Jury Can’t Agree on Sentence in 2 Murders

A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury couldn’t decide if a Los Angeles man should be executed for masterminding a botched computer store robbery that ended in murder and later ordering the slaying of a key witness.

Jurors deliberated three days before announcing they were deadlocked 7-5 in favor of a death sentence for William Clinton Clark, who has denied involvement in the killings.

The same jury in May found Clark, 42, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and other felonies connected with the fatal shootings of Kathy Lee and Ardell Love Williams.

Lee, a 49-year-old Garden Grove secretary, was shot in the head Oct. 18, 1991, as she arrived at a Fountain Valley CompUSA store to pick up her teenage son from work, unknowingly interrupting a robbery Clark was accused of organizing.

Williams, a 19-year-old woman who provided damaging grand jury testimony against Clark about the robbery, was shot in the head March 13, 1994, at a Gardena industrial park, where she had been lured on the pretense of a job interview, allegedly by Clark’s girlfriend.

Prosecutors must now decide if they will seek a second trial in which a new jury would be asked to decide if Clark should be sentenced to death; or leave the matter for the judge, who would be compelled to sentence Clark to life imprisonment without parole.

Jurors on Thursday said they were evenly split about the sentence through much of their deliberations, which one described as “grueling.”

One juror, who asked that her name not be used, said she voted for a life sentence without parole, in part because Clark was not accused of pulling the trigger that killed the women.

“It was a circumstantial case,” she said, adding that life imprisonment would be a “harsh sentence anyway.”

Juror Jeff De Laquil said he eventually voted for a death penalty because killing someone for being a witness is “one of the worst things.”

The trial was the first in recent Orange County history involving a defendant charged with killing a witness, and Clark could have become the first person in the county to receive a death penalty without having physically killed his victims.

Although Clark was not accused of pulling the trigger in either killing, he was equally responsible for murder under the law for his roles in planning the crimes, Deputy Dist. Atty. Rick King contended during the trial’s two-month guilt phase before Superior Court Judge Jean Rheinheimer.

King said allowing Clark to live made no sense because the defendant had orchestrated the killing of Williams while in custody.

The defense maintained that authorities lacked any physical evidence linking Clark to the crimes, and that key prosecution witnesses were lying about Clark to stay out of trouble.

Clark’s lawyer argued that his client was not among the “worst of the worst” killers deserving death. Attorney Jack M. Earley also said there remained too many unanswered questions concerning Clark’s exact role in the killings to merit a death sentence.

The triggerman in the computer store robbery, along with Clark’s younger brother, are already serving life sentences without parole for Lee’s murder. Antoinette Yancey, Clark’s girlfriend, is awaiting trial separately in Williams’ murder on charges that also carry a potential death penalty.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood.