Man Guilty of Fatally Burning Woman in Tustin

A hunger-striking murder defendant who refused to attend his own trial was quickly found guilty Thursday of burning a bookkeeper to death in a dispute over his $150 paycheck.

Jurors will return to court Monday to decide if should be executed for the Feb. 2, 1993, slaying of Karen Marie LaBorde.

The panel deliberated about 3 1/2 hours before finding the 34-year-old janitor guilty of first-degree murder, as well as torture and mayhem charges that make him eligible for the death sentence.

Shortly before the verdict was read, D’Arcy waived his right to hear the judgment in person and see his jury for the first time. Appearing haggard but sounding lucid, he repeated his objection to the way he thought his case was being handled. “I don’t want any part of this trial,” he told Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald.

Earlier in the day, another judge told jail medical officials they could resume force feeding D’Arcy, who began a hunger strike 30 days ago. Judge David O. Carter has said he will order the forced feedings as necessary to make sure D’Arcy doesn’t fall into a state of “incompetency” that could disrupt the trial.

While jurors heard from the victim herself in a tape-recording of her last words to police, they only saw a photograph of a glaring D’Arcy during the course of the three-week trial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko charged that D’Arcy was seeking revenge over a paycheck when he doused 42-year-old LaBorde with gasoline in her Tustin business office and set her on fire using his cigarette lighter.

LaBorde worked for a building maintenance company that employed D’Arcy as a contract janitor, and identified him to police as her assailant before dying about eight hours after suffering burns over most of her body.

Her statement also revealed the cruelest of ironies: D’Arcy’s paycheck was his for the asking.

“He made a mistake,” she said, amid moans of agony. “I didn’t hold his money.”

Defense attorney George A. Peters contended his client should be found guilty of first-degree murder, but said D’Arcy has a long history of paranoia and never intended to torture or maim the bookkeeper.

“Mr. D’Arcy’s broken mind compelled him to destroy Mrs. LaBorde and himself,” Peters told jurors.

At the time of the crime, D’Arcy was suffering mounting financial problems, and the bookkeeper became a symbol of all his frustrations, his lawyer said. Before buying the $1 worth of gasoline he would eventually throw on the woman’s face, the lawyer said D’Arcy told his girlfriend’s son he thought he was losing his mind and would be better off dead or in jail.

“He is not equipped to handle society or reality,” Peters said.

The prosecutor said D’Arcy, despite any mental problems, not only wanted to kill the woman, but to torture her at the same time. “He chose the method of burning her alive. Why? In order to make her suffer,” Molko told jurors.

D’Arcy, for his part, has vehemently denied lighting the woman on fire, and has repeatedly protested his lawyer’s use of evidence indicating he has mental problems.

The defendant claims investigators tampered with evidence that would prove a space heater ignited the fire. A prosecution arson expert testified that only an open flame, such as one from a cigarette lighter, could have ignited the gasoline-soaked woman.

Before the trial even started, Peters failed in a bid to have D’Arcy declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, describing his client as “irrational and incapable of cooperating” with his defense.

D’Arcy opted to keep his lawyer rather than represent himself as he had in the past, but announced the hunger strike at that time.