Teens Face Trial as Adults in Slaying of Boy, 12

Two teenagers accused in the slaying of a 12-year-old who lived in their Calabasas group home--a crime that inspired countywide reforms in the supervision of delinquents--will be tried as adults.

Brandon Sewell and Gregory Smith, 16 and 17 at the time of the crime, were found unfit for trial as juveniles on Friday by Juvenile Court Judge Morton Rochman.

Both confessed to beating Rodney Haynes to death on Aug. 26, investigators said.

Lawyers representing Sewell and Smith argued unsuccessfully that the pair should be tried in Juvenile Court because the crime was not premeditated murder but manslaughter. Smith, now 18, was taken to the men’s jail after the proceeding.

At the hearing, one investigator suggested the killing may have been planned, rather than a reaction to the younger boy mouthing off, as one of the defendants claimed.

“I do have an opinion with respect to pre-planning in this case,” Los Angeles Sheriff’s Sgt. John Greenwood told Sewell’s lawyer from the witness stand. The defense attorney did not ask for elaboration, and Greenwood later declined to elaborate.

Greenwood testified that a day before Rodney was beaten to death, Rodney and Sewell got into a shoving and shouting match over gang affiliations at the Passageways group home where Rodney had been placed only a few days earlier.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Shannon Presby said the argument provides “circumstantial evidence of the possibility of premeditation.”

The night he died, Rodney snuck out of the home with the two defendants to steal beer and cigarettes from the Kwikmart convenience store on Agoura Road near Las Virgenes Road, about a mile from the group home, the defendants told investigators. As they stood outside the back door to the store, plotting the theft, Rodney began mouthing off, Sewel told Greenwood. In response, they beat him to death, Sewel said.

Greenwood said Smith, who weighs about 200 pounds, grabbed the 85-pound-Rodney in a chokehold as Sewell punched him about a dozen times to the face. When Smith finally loosened his grip, Rodney fell to the ground, where the defendants allegedly kicked Rodney as he gurgled blood.

Smith and Sewell then allegedly dragged Rodney about 20 feet to a dumpster, where they kicked and beat him with a stick, Greenwood said.. In the final blows, Sewell smashed Rodney’s head with the pointed end of an ax-head-shaped rock seven times, Greenwood said.

Smith and Sewell hid the body in the dumpster and agreed to deny any involvement if questioned by police, Greenwood said. The body was found the next morning by a garbage truck driver as he emptied the bin.

Rodney’s guardian and foster mother, Diedra Lampley, hid her face behind a trembling hand as she heard for the first time how the youth had died.

“It was hard hearing the graphic details,” she said. “I saw the body, but I didn’t realize how many blows it took to do that.”

She said she was glad Sewell and Smith would be sent to adult court, which she said is “a proper place” for them.

As she left the hearing, Lampley said she was on her way to buy a headstone for Rodney’s grave at Roosevelt Memorial Garden. She said it would be his 13th birthday present.

Rodney’s death touched off a firestorm of criticism at the county Probation Department over housing the youth with older, more serious offenders.

After investigating the 12-year-old’s slaying, Acting Probation Director Walter J. Kelly in October acknowledged the department’s failure in supervising troubled youths in group homes and listed a series of reforms, particularly a system for investigating the backgrounds of youths in a home before placing others there.

Rodney had been placed in Passageways when he ran away from home while on probation for a robbery in which he served as the lookout, Lampley said. Rodney had recently begun acting up, Lampley said, and she thought placing him in a group home for a while would teach him a lesson.

Sewell has a long history of juvenile crime beginning with neighborhood burglaries when he was 10, according to the county Probation Department. Smith’s record includes armed robber and sexual assault.

The night Rodney died there was another 12-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old in the home with Sewell, then 16, and Smith, who was three months from his 18th birthday, according to court records.