2 Teens Plead No Contest in Boy’s Slaying

Two teenagers have pleaded no contest to killing a 12-year-old who lived in their Calabasas group home, a crime that triggered wide reforms in the supervision of foster children, authorities said Thursday.

Brandon Sewell and Gregory Smith agreed to a sentence of 16 years to life in prison for second-degree murder in the death of Rodney Haynes. Neither would be eligible for parole before 2012.

The pair beat Rodney to death outside a Calabasas convenience store 18 months ago because he was mouthing off, they said. They left his broken body in a dumpster. The trio had left Passageways foster home after dark to steal beer from the nearby market.

Sewell, 17, and Smith, 19, who were prosecuted as adults, confessed to sheriff’s detectives shortly after the crime on Aug. 26, 1997.

Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction, but one of the defense lawyers said he would argue the crime was manslaughter, relying in part on a psychologists’ report.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Chizever said that, while she thought there was a strong argument for first-degree, or premeditated, murder, the lesser murder charge was a “fair” resolution.

Smith, who weighs over 200 pounds, grabbed 85-pound Rodney in a choke hold as Sewell punched him repeatedly in the face. When Smith finally loosened his grip and Rodney fell to the ground, both kicked him. Sewell smashed the boy’s head with a rock, then they threw him in a dumpster.

“It was totally senseless,” Chizever said. “And they just kept going and going.”

The county Probation Department was widely criticized for having housed Rodney with older, more serious offenders and at a group home that did not have permanent nighttime supervision.

Two months after the boy’s death, Probation Department Director Walter J. Kelly acknowledged the department’s failure and announced a series of reforms. They included the creation of a system to investigate the backgrounds of youths already in a home before placing others there, and segregating delinquents of different ages.

Rodney had been at Passageways group home for six days when he was slain. He was sent there after authorities said he and some friends robbed the clerk at a video store.

He was given probation, but he kept skipping school and ran away from home. County workers decided he should be put in a group home with 24-hour supervision.

Smith was put in foster care for sexually assaulting a 2-year-old neighbor when he was 13. He was tossed out of nine group homes in three years for stealing, fighting or running away before being sent to a camp. He was eventually sent to Passageways, which specialized in helping teens get jobs and learn everyday life skills.

Sewell--who records show began his criminal career at 10 by breaking into neighbors’ homes--had also escaped from or been thrown out of a number of group homes before Passageways.

“I place a lot of fault in the system” for Rodney’s death, said Diedra Lampley, his guardian. “If I leave my child alone in a car for a few minutes, I can be arrested. You tell me they can just leave five or six troubled teenagers alone in a foster home with no supervision? That’s not right.”

She has mixed feelings about whether the plea agreement, reached Wednesday, was harsh enough. “Both of them, they killed once and it was relatively easy for them,” she said. “Will they kill again? Nobody can predict the future.”