Man Convicted in Slaying of Taft Student

A Northridge man was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder for stabbing a 15-year-old Taft High School football player to death while he waited to catch a bus home after practice.

Family and friends of LaMoun Thames, killed five years ago, embraced and wept as the clerk read the verdict that could send Oscar Lopez, 22, to state prison for 25 years to life.

The murder of Thames, who each day made a 70-mile round trip by bus from his South-Central Los Angeles home to what his family considered the relative safety of the Woodland Hills school, shocked the west San Fernando Valley.

Lopez, who appeared in court neatly dressed in a jacket and tie, shook his head and pursed his lips, then glared back into the gallery at the victim’s friends and family, including his mother and sister.

Thames’ sister, Shanise Anderson, 23, described her brother as a sweet kid who dreamed of attending USC and going on to play professional football.

“It makes me sad when I go to USC to see my boyfriend and study on campus,” she said after the verdict. “I picture him out there playing football.” LaMoun went to Taft for a better education in a safer environment, Anderson said.

“Everybody thought this was a safe neighborhood and said they couldn’t believe it happened here,” Anderson said. “It just goes to show, nowhere is safe.”

Lopez, a gang member, was considered a suspect early on, but authorities were forced to drop the charges when witnesses could not be found. Prosecutors eventually persuaded three men who were with Lopez in a car at the time of the killing to testify against him, leading to his conviction.

“It’s been so long and the family’s been through so much,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter after the two-week trial. “I can’t imagine going through anything that’s worse. We’re just grateful for the jury’s decision.”

Lopez’s family also reacted with tears, but said afterward that authorities had “the wrong person.”

“They used witnesses who had criminal records and gave contradictory testimony,” said his sister, Irena Lopez, 21. “The police admitted they made mistakes. My brother was not capable of committing this crime. They need to find the right guy.”

Prosecutors said the defendant would likely be behind bars until old age because he already is serving 25 years in state prison for a string of residential robberies across the Valley.

Sentencing in the murder is set for Oct. 15 before Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt.

“I thought the evidence was overwhelming,” said one juror, who declined to give her name. “But it was a hard thing to do.”

Defense attorney James H. Barnes said the three-man, nine-woman panel rendered a decision based on incomplete information.

“This was a situation where the eyewitness description and the artist rendering of the crime did not match my client,” Barnes said. “The prosecution built its case on witnesses that were out for a $25,000 reward, were out for personal vengeance or trying to save their own skins. This was kept from the jury.”

But prosecutors and police defended their case, pointing to testimony from three of the four men who were riding with Lopez when the killing took place.

“Everybody in that car with Oscar Lopez was shocked to learn he had actually stabbed the kid,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Joel Price. “There was no blood money. No one in that car was out to get a reward.”

According to detectives, on the afternoon of Aug. 5, 1992, Thames was waiting for the bus that would take him home when a car carrying Lopez and several other youths pulled up near him and one of them asked, “Where you from?” Authorities say this was an effort to find out if he had a gang affiliation.

Thames replied, “Hey, I’m not from anywhere.”

Nonetheless, witnesses testified, Lopez got out of the car and stabbed Thames twice, in the heart and lung.

After running 50 feet to escape his attacker, Thames collapsed before a 12-year-old girl and her mother came to his aid, comforting him as he lay dying in the parking lot of a grocery store near the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue.

Police initially had problems locating witnesses to the crime, which was under investigation for two years. In April 1994 authorities got a break when they received an anonymous phone tip implicating Lopez. The district attorney’s office filed murder charges.

But it turned out prosecutors were forced to drop charges in 1995 due to problems locating witnesses. After more detective work by Price and his colleagues, including finding and interviewing witnesses, prosecutors took the case to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, which returned a murder indictment against Lopez in January.

Lopez’s earlier burglary convictions were for crimes committed while he was dating Victoria Sellers, daughter of the late comic actor Peter Sellers.