Death Penalty Sought in Case of Slain Jogger

Prosecutors said Tuesday they will seek the death penalty in the murder trial of Leonard Owen Mundy, a Los Angeles man charged with killing flight attendant Jane Carver as she returned home from an early morning jog.

The 46-year-old Fountain Valley woman was only a block away from her home near Mile Square Regional Park when she was attacked June 10, 1995. She was apparently mistaken for another woman who was the intended target of a contract killing, authorities have said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Tanizaki said the aggravated nature of the crime and the innocence of the victim led to the decision to seek execution for Mundy if he is convicted of first-degree murder and special circumstances of lying in wait and murder for financial gain.

Defense attorney Marlin G. Stapleton said he was surprised at the prosecution’s decision to seek death in the case.

“It’s not appropriate in this case because there is significant doubt regarding the identification of my client,” Stapleton said. “This is not an open-and-shut case by any means.”

Stapleton said the identification of Mundy is the major issue in the case, and he has “major issues” with the methods in which police lineups were conducted.

But Tanizaki said six different witnesses have been involved in the process of identifying Mundy. He also said the prosecution is confident.

“We feel we have enough evidence to prove that Mr. Mundy was involved in the murder of Jane Carver,” he said.

Prosecutors allege that Mundy was carrying out a contract killing on behalf of Premium Commercial Services Corp., a Huntington Beach finance company to which he owed money. They allege that he shot Carver in a case of mistaken identity.

During a three-day preliminary hearing last December, police officials testified that Mundy was the man witnesses said they saw at St. Marcus Street and Warner Avenue, where Carver was shot.

But Stapleton maintains that Mundy was wrongly identified and said none of the witnesses were closer than 100 feet to the site of the attack on Carver.

The defense attorney also hinted at the preliminary hearing that Carver’s killer could have been Paul Gordon Alleyne, whose second trial for the attempted murder of San Clemente resident James Wengert is scheduled to begin this week.

A jury deadlocked in trying to reach a verdict during Alleyne’s first trial, in which his defense attorney had suggested that the assailant described by Wengert looks more like Mundy than his client.

Both suspects owned a small Los Angeles-area business and owed money to Premium. Authorities allege that Premium required people who owed money to take out large life insurance policies naming the company as beneficiary.

Investigators believe that Wengert’s wife, Margaret “Peggy” Wengert, was the intended target and that Mundy shot Carver thinking she was Wengert.

Three days before Carver was shot, Peggy Wengert filed a lawsuit against Premium Commercial, accusing company officials of strong-arming her to sign over the Fountain Valley home that the Wengerts had once owned. The house, which was in Peggy Wengert’s name, was not far from Carver’s home.