Prosecutor Calls Rathbun a ‘Monster’ in Urging Conviction

As model Linda Sobek’s family wept, a prosecutor called photographer Charles Rathbun a “human monster” Wednesday and urged that he be convicted of murder in her “excruciatingly painful” slaying.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay told jurors that Sobek was a serious young woman whose best friend was her mother and who carried a photograph of her parents with a heart drawn on it to show her devotion.

“She didn’t deserve to spend the last minutes of her time on Earth being tortured at the hands of the human monster Charles Rathbun,” Kay said.

Watching from seats near the jury box were friends and relatives of Sobek, many of them sobbing and dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs.

Across the courtroom, four Rathbun family members sat stolidly.

“Will she be able to rest in peace knowing justice has been done in this case?” Kay asked the jury in closing arguments. “From her grave, Linda Sobek cries out for justice. Don’t let her cries go unanswered.”

After Kay concluded, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Donald F. Pitts sent the jury to the deliberation room to select a foreman.

The jury is to return today to begin deliberating charges of first-degree murder and sodomy with a foreign object.

Kay’s final argument mocked defense assertions that Rathbun had no motive to rape and kill the model during an automotive photo shoot.

“The motive for killing her was to avoid detection. How could he possibly let her live after what he’d done?” Kay said.

If convicted of murder and sexual assault, Rathbun could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jurors also have the choice of considering voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Rathbun, 39, is accused of murdering the 27-year-old Hermosa Beach model after sodomizing her with an unknown object in what prosecution experts said was a horribly painful attack.

Sobek vanished Nov. 16, 1995. Rathbun led police to her shallow grave along a remote road in the Angeles National Forest nine days later.

Rathbun said the former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader voluntarily had sex with him during a photo shoot on a dry lake north of Los Angeles.

He told the jury Sobek was accidentally asphyxiated when he sat on her in the back seat of the car after an argument. He said he then panicked and buried her body.

Summarizing the alleged motive for the initial sexual attack, Kay said evidence showed that Rathbun hated Sobek and that he “hit on” every attractive woman he met. He lured her to the lake bed “to see what he could get” but signs of a struggle show Sobek wanted none of it, Kay said.

Defense lawyer Mark Werksman on Tuesday described the evidence as weak and argued that prosecutors did not explain what could motivate a successful photographer to make such a brutal attack and then kill to cover it up.

But Kay said Rathbun’s own testimony and actions clearly indicated his guilt, contrary to the “cockamamie” story he told the jury.

“When have any of you heard of such a thing? That somebody was killed by someone sitting on them in the back seat of a car?” Kay asked.

Werksman’s description of how Sobek could have voluntarily had sex with Rathbun was so lurid Tuesday that her mother, Elaine Sobek, left the courtroom in tears.

On Wednesday she predicted that jurors would convict Rathbun of murder and sexual assault.

“He’s going down,” Elaine Sobek said.