Violence a Pattern for Pair Accused of Slaying Deputy

Nine years ago on West 62nd Street in Los Angeles, Kevin Boyce was stealing a car when he threatened to kill a man--but voiced a measure of compassion toward the grandchild in the car.

“Get the kid out of here. We don’t kill kids,” he told the car’s driver. “But we would kill you.”

That same year, another robber, Andre Willis, stormed into an Ontario coffee shop where the customers included two off-duty cops. During a brief but tense scene, according to witnesses, he knocked over one officer and then shot at his car in a frantic freeway chase.

Those old, unrelated events bear an eerily coincidental resemblance to some of the circumstances in the recent slaying of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Shayne York.

Today, in an Orange County Municipal courtroom, Boyce and Willis are scheduled to be arraigned in York’s August slaying. Authorities allege that the men executed the law enforcement officer with a bullet to the head while sparing two women--including York’s fiancee--during a robbery.

The earlier crimes have no legal bearing on the current charges facing Boyce and Willis, who could receive the death penalty. Willis’ lawyer, Barry Post, said that whatever the pair’s criminal histories, “the old cases have absolutely no portent on what is alleged to have occurred. . . . It is a coincidence and a similarity without meaning.”

Yet the cases provide a chilling glimpse at the long road traveled by two street gang members who now stand accused as cop killers.

On a warm summer night in 1988 on 62nd Street, a 49-year-old letter carrier returned from an evening out with his wife and 6-year-old granddaughter. After the man drove up to his South Los Angeles home and got out of his car, a hand closed around his throat, according to court testimony. The victim turned and looked into the face of Boyce, flanked by another man carrying what appeared to be a .22-caliber rifle.

“We need your car to help out one of our homeboys,” Boyce, identified by police as a Rollin ‘60s gang member, told the terrified man, according to court transcripts.

First, the robber demanded the man’s wallet and keys. Then he spotted the man’s granddaughter, sitting in the car’s back seat. That, according to testimony, is when Boyce told the man the child was safe.

Almost a decade later, one of the many questions surrounding York’s murder is why his fiancee, Sheriff’s Deputy Jennifer Parish, was spared.

Boyce, 27, and Willis, 30, are charged with shooting York in a robbery inside De’ Cut Hair Salon in Buena Park on Aug. 14.

Another question--perhaps the most vexing--is the path that led Boyce and Willis to their alleged fateful encounter with York, who was cut down at 26, only two years after fulfilling his lifelong dream of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a sheriff’s deputy.

Court records and interviews show that long before Boyce and Willis were charged in York’s slaying, each had extensive criminal records.

According to court papers, Boyce was born June 19, 1970, in Detroit and lived in the Grand Rapids area and in Germany for a brief period while his father was in the military.

In 1971, the family moved to North Carolina, and then to California in 1978.

As a teenager, Boyce became an associate of the Rollin ‘60s and was known by the moniker “Kevdog.” He dropped out of Cleveland High School in Los Angeles at age 16 and was accused of committing several crimes--including battery--as a juvenile. He was arrested for his first robbery two weeks after his 18th birthday.

In the 1988 robbery on 62nd Street, Boyce and his gun-wielding accomplice sped off in the stolen Buick and were caught 30 minutes later by police.

At a sentencing hearing, a prosecutor advised the judge to impose a lengthy prison term on Boyce because of his role as the brains behind the robbery.

“He was a prime mover,” the prosecutor said of Boyce.

Willis’ role in a separate 1988 robbery was no less dramatic.

It was about 3:20 a.m. on May 4, 1988, when the then-22-year-old gang member known as “Benzo” and two other men entered a Denny’s restaurant in Ontario. Within five minutes, according to a transcript of their preliminary hearing, the robbers rousted both a restaurant employee and several customers, including two off-duty cops, before making off in a new Jeep Cherokee that they had stolen one week earlier.

Recalling how quickly the robbers moved through the restaurant, one witness described a trio that moved efficiently to rob the few terrified customers in the restaurant at that hour.

After giving $7 to one robber, the man said, he then was confronted by the 6-foot, 200-pound Willis.

“He tried to collect from us again. Scared the pants off me because, you know, I was tapped,” the man recalled.

One of two off-duty LAPD officers who were among the victims testified that Willis robbed him and then struck him before the gunmen fled the restaurant.

Then, the officer testified, as he and his partner chased the robbers, Willis appeared to point a weapon and shoot at them during a 17-mile freeway chase. And that, the officer claimed, prompted him to shoot.

“I didn’t shoot at the Jeep. I shot at Mr. Willis. . . . I saw what I believed to be a rifle. I believed at that time Mr. Willis was about to shoot at us, so I figured [on firing] for my safety and the safety of my partner,” the officer said.

No one was hit by gunfire and after a chase, police arrested Willis and two companions.

While the prosecutor in the York case and Boyce’s attorney declined comment about the backgrounds of the two defendants, Willis’ attorney said he saw “no significance” to the earlier robbery case involving his client.

“If you are saying, ‘Gee, in past cases, police officers may also have been victims,’ well, look around you, police officers are human beings who also can be victims of crimes.”

After pleading guilty to the robbery, Willis sought to withdraw that plea. He received a nine-year prison sentence.

Six years later, he was paroled and then arrested and convicted of robbery--an offense that, under California’s three-strikes law, could have put him behind bars for 25 years to life.

Instead, he served 32 months in prison and was released in February of this year.

Six months later, he was arrested again. And charged with murder.