Jury Decides Double Murderer Deserves Death Penalty

A 41-year-old man who once bragged that killing was as easy as “popping balloons” deserves the death penalty for the murders of a co-worker and a drug dealer, a jury decided Friday.

Robert Carrasco was convicted by the same jury on Tuesday of murdering George Camacho in December 1994 after losing his shift at Ross Swiss dairy in Los Angeles to Camacho.

Being sent back to the afternoon shift instead of being allowed to work nights would limit his hours working a day job at a body shop, costing Carrasco over $9,000 a month, prosecutors said. So he shot Camacho nine times in the dairy’s parking lot.

The jury’s recommendation of a death sentence went to Superior Court Judge Michael Harwin, who is scheduled to pass sentence next month.

The jury also found Carrasco guilty of robbing and murdering a drug dealer in Encino less than a year after Camacho. After selling Alan Friedman 2 kilograms of cocaine, Carrasco shot him eight times so he could keep the money and the drugs, prosecutors said.

But he mistakenly stole the wrong bag from Friedman’s car and ended up taking Friedman’s books instead of the drugs.

Carrasco wasn’t investigated in the Camacho slaying until after the LAPD identified him as a suspect in Friedman’s, according to prosecutors.

Because they found him guilty of first-degree murder and special allegations that make it a capital offense--including murder during the course of a robbery and for financial gain--jurors then had to recommend whether he be sentenced to life in prison or death.

His defense attorney argued that either sentence was a death sentence because it guaranteed that Carrasco would never leave prison alive. His family contends that Carrasco was framed by a drug dealer who was actually responsible for both slayings.

The jury’s recommendation was a relief for Camacho’s parents, who said death was the only proper penalty for taking their son from them.

Carrasco was also convicted of a 1997 escape while awaiting trial.