Wife Denies Plot to Kill Husband

Referring to her dead husband as “Mr. Hooker,” the wife on trial for allegedly murdering him in an arson fire showed little emotion as she said how she found him sprawled and not breathing on the bedroom floor, less than two feet away from a door that would have led him to safety.

Joy Hooker wept twice during a day of testimony at her murder trial--once as she spoke about family mementos damaged in the smoky blaze, and again as she recanted the partial confession she made to detectives after the fire.

But the 52-year-old defendant kept her composure as she told jurors about the death of her husband, Thomas, a retired Los Angeles police sergeant who was nearly blind, needed thrice-weekly kidney dialysis, and was so weak he couldn’t dress himself.

She denied that her invalid husband had become a burden to her, or that she plotted the killing with her stepson, David, who has already been convicted in the case and sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.

“I cared about Tom. I loved him,” she insisted.

The fire began when embers from the fireplace ignited a love seat in the living room of the family’s Littlerock home.

Hooker recanted a partial confession to police after her arrest in June 1993. In the tape-recorded statement, played for the jury last week, Hooker says she and her stepson planned to set fire to the house to delay a foreclosure and collect an insurance payment, but never intended for Thomas Hooker to die.

On Wednesday, Hooker again denied any plot, saying she’d merely told police “what I thought they wanted to hear.”

She recalled telling police as she was placed under arrest: “ ‘How can this be happening?’ This was an accident as far as I knew. I told them as I remembered things happening. I was in a little bit of a state of shock at that time.”

She added that the investigators had taunted her, saying she would receive the death penalty if she didn’t confess. “They kept reiterating the fact that I was going to die,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “But if Mr. Hooker’s death was an accident, they said it would not be a major charge.”

Her lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Earl Siddal, said outside the courtroom that Hooker has been diagnosed as having characteristics of a “dependent personality disorder” that make her highly suggestible. Depending on how Superior Court Judge Michael J. Farrell rules, Siddal hopes to call a mental health expert to the stand on Monday.

“If there was a crime committed, it wasn’t murder,” said Siddal.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Smalstig has repeatedly pointed out that Joy and David Hooker managed to rescue the family dog, while leaving Tom Hooker behind in the house.

Joy Hooker testified that she had no idea how the fire started since she was asleep at the time. She said she put her husband to bed about midnight, giving him an extra sleeping pill because he’d been restless. She stayed up and watched “Tales from the Crypt” on television, before going to bed herself about 2:30 a.m.

She said she was awakened by her stepson’s shouts and escaped through a window. Later, she testified, she returned with a flashlight to search for her husband.

“It was smoky and I was choking. It was warm,” she said, estimating the temperature inside the house at about 90 degrees. When she found her husband, “he was probably 18 to 22, 23 inches into the bedroom. The top of his head was near the doorway.” Son-in-law Robert Eldridge, who lived across the street, was trying to revive him.

Joy and David Hooker were arrested within weeks of the April 19, 1993, blaze and charged with murdering Thomas Warren Hooker for insurance money. David Hooker, 34, is a convicted bank robber who already spent 10 years in federal prison before his first-degree murder conviction.

Joy Hooker wore a suit with a floral pattern to the witness stand and spoke in a soft voice, often employing euphemisms. For example, in reference to the years David Hooker spent in prison for the bank robbery, she said her stepson was “a guest of the federal government.”

Thomas Hooker, who as a police officer had been hailed as a hero during the 1960s for rescuing residents from a burning apartment building, had been hardened by the shooting death of his partner and an investigation into his own role in the shooting of a suspect during the 1965 Watts riots.

At the time she was arrested, Joy Hooker was carrying the urn containing her husband’s ashes in her car. “Mr. Hooker had wanted his ashes scattered over the ocean,” she explained. She was arrested before she had the chance.