Jury to Hear Confession in Casino Slaying

A Las Vegas judge ruled Tuesday that a jury will hear the confessions of a Long Beach teenager accused of sexually assaulting and killing a 7-year-old girl in a Nevada casino bathroom last May.

Jeremy Joseph Strohmeyer, 19, testified in a pretrial hearing last week that his requests for an attorney had gone unheeded and that he had never been advised of his rights before making statements to authorities.

But U.S. District Judge Don Chairez disagreed. “The court cannot accept or jump to the conclusion that [Strohmeyer asked for a lawyer],” the judge said. “The court finds it almost impossible to believe that two police officers would risk their careers by lying.”

Frowning slightly, Strohmeyer displayed little emotion at the judge’s ruling, which is devastating but was not unexpected by Strohmeyer’s defense team.

Copies of his confessions, inadvertently made public last year, describe in chilling detail what authorities said Strohmeyer himself called a “heinous crime.”

Defense attorney Leslie Abramson, during a pretrial hearing that stretched seven court days over a month, had sought to persuade the judge to keep the confession from jurors.

Among the strongest evidence against Strohmeyer, who could be sentenced to death if convicted, is a taped confession in which Las Vegas police read Strohmeyer his rights.

Abramson and her co-counsel, Richard Wright, had argued that the high school senior had not been given his rights before he was previously questioned by Long Beach police, and therefore all subsequent statements should be tossed out.

They also contended that Strohmeyer was forced to answer detectives’ questions when he was suffering the effects of amphetamines taken in an apparent suicide attempt.

More than a dozen witnesses were summoned during the pretrial hearing, including police, who testified that Strohmeyer was told his rights and that he never requested an attorney. They and hospital personnel said that the teen appeared coherent and cooperative.

Strohmeyer’s mother, Winifred, and an attorney hired shortly after his arrest, Doug Otto, testified that they were prevented from seeing Strohmeyer in the hours after his arrest. Otto said he repeatedly told police that he had been hired by the family and that he didn’t want the teenager to be questioned without Otto being present.

Police, defense attorney Wright said, engaged in “11 hours of hide-the-defendant,” spiriting Strohmeyer out one door of the hospital as an officer spoke to Otto in the lobby.

But the key issue at the hearing was about what happened between Strohmeyer and the police.

In his closing argument, Dist. Atty. Stewart Bell pointed out that Strohmeyer was accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a child. “Can the court think of anybody with a greater motive to lie?” he asked.

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In addressing Abramson’s claim that Strohmeyer was particularly vulnerable because of the massive doses of drugs he had taken, Bell observed, “The only evidence that his mind was overcome by drugs is his own say-so . . . the product of a man fighting for his very life.”

Before a packed courtroom, Strohmeyer calmly testified last Thursday that police had lied during their account of his confessions. He offered his version of events following his arrest three days after the body of Sherrice Iverson, a second-grader from Los Angeles, was found stuffed in a toilet May 25 in the Primadonna Casino and Resort, 43 miles south of Las Vegas.

Strohmeyer testified that he twice asked for a lawyer after his arrest as he rode alone in a police car with a Long Beach police officer. Strohmeyer said that instead of honoring his request, Sgt. Walter Turley told him lawyers would “just drag things out and make it difficult” for him and his family, as well as consume all their money. Neither Turley nor any of the other Long Beach officers informed him of his Miranda rights, Strohmeyer testified.

After his stomach was pumped in the hospital, Strohmeyer said the drugs started to kick in and he felt “spaced out.” In his drug-altered state, with one hand cuffed to the hospital bed and a tube running down his nose into his stomach, he answered the detectives’ questions.

Strohmeyer gave Long Beach police two accounts of the killing, which occurred after the girl’s father left her and her 14-year-old brother in a video arcade at the casino while he gambled shortly before dawn. The first discussion took place in the hospital.

The second one occurred at the Long Beach police station, where a tape recorder with a hidden microphone malfunctioned, rendering the first of two cassettes inaudible--a mishap that Abramson alleged worked to the police’s advantage. At the beginning of this discussion, an officer said he had asked Strohmeyer if he had been given his rights, and Strohmeyer said that he had.

Then at 2 a.m., some seven hours after his arrest, Strohmeyer sat down with Las Vegas detectives and answered their questions. For this interview, the Las Vegas officer set a tape recorder on the table and asked permission to tape the exchange. He informed Strohmeyer of his rights, asking first whether the suspect had been advised earlier--a query to which Strohmeyer replied, “That’s correct.”

Although he took the stand during the hearing, Strohmeyer still has the right not to testify during his trial, set to begin April 20.

The judge also ruled Tuesday that materials seized from Strohmeyer’s home computer in Long Beach would not be admissible as evidence.