Execution Won’t Be Sought for Killer

A double murderer whose victims included a mother who was picking up her daughter from Bible study has been spared the death penalty, prosecutors announced Thursday.

A month after jurors could not agree on whether Etienne Michael Moore, 25, deserved to be executed for his crimes, the district attorney’s office has decided not to seek a retrial and accept the default penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Moore is scheduled to be sentenced in October by Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith for the fatal shootings five years ago of Laurie Myles outside a Chatsworth home where her daughter was studying the Bible, and that of Talin Tarkhanian, whom Moore killed on orders from another man to earn his “stripes” in a gang.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Janice Maurizi and Edwin Greene said Moore deserved to die, but jurors could not agree, voting 10-2 for death in Tarkhanian’s murder and 9-3 for death in the killing of Myles.

Prosecutors said they decided not to seek the death penalty again mainly because “the families, particularly the Tarkhanian family, really expressed the desire not to go through it again,” Greene said.

Moore, a former Faith Baptist High School basketball star, and another defendant, LaCedrick Johnson, were members of a so-called follow home robbery ring.

Johnson, who was driving the getaway car when Myles was robbed and shot, was also convicted of Myles’ murder and has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A third defendant, Shashonee Solomon, 35, ordered the hit on Tarkhanian in part because the woman broke off their romantic relationship. He was sentenced to 38 years to life in prison, the maximum for the charges of which he was convicted.