Closing Arguments Complete in Murder Trial of 3 Men

After years of delay, three months of trial and 60 volumes of testimony, a jury will finally get to decide next week who killed a North Hills woman in front of her 9-year-old son.

Attorneys wrapped up four days of closing arguments Friday in the murder trial of Etienne Moore, LaCedrick Johnson and Shashonee Solomon.

The three men are accused of a seemingly random series of 30 robberies in the Valley that included the slaying of Laurie Myles, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot to death as she picked up her daughter from a Northridge bible study class in September 1993.

“These defendants are complete opportunists,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Maurizi told the jury. “Their acts are acts of calculated randomness. The evidence shows this was a major conspiracy.”

Jurors will begin mulling over the byzantine case early next week, as soon as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith has had enough time to read 130 pages of legal instructions.

One of the key issues in the trial was the degree to which the three men allegedly conspired to commit the crimes, which also included a second killing, that of Kara Tarkhanian, 20, of Reseda. Solomon allegedly ordered Moore and Johnson to kill Tarkhanian after she broke off their relationship.

Using friends, telephone records and elaborate timelines, prosecutors tried to show the three men worked together to commit the robberies and plan the killing of Myles and Tarkhanian.

But during cross-examination, several of the witnesses who tied the men to the crimes were shown to have criminal records themselves or to have been given reduced sentences in return for their cooperation.

That led defense attorneys to question the validity of the testimony. But Maurizi, acknowledging the unsavory background of some witnesses, said she had no choice given the gangster lifestyle the three men lived.

“When a crime is committed in hell, you don’t have angels as witnesses,” she said.

Besides inconsistencies in some of the witness statements, defense attorneys focused on the lack of physical evidence in the Myles case.

A palm print found on Myles’ car didn’t match that of alleged triggerman Moore. And no positive identification was made by witnesses.

Still, one of the most moving moments in the trial came during the testimony of Joshua Myles, 14, who was 9 when he watched his mother die.

Several jurors appeared to wipe tears from their eyes as he told how robbers approached the Myles’ car from behind, then shot through the driver’s side window to get Myles’ purse.

Although Joshua failed to pick Moore out in a police lineup, he did say in court that Moore looked “similar” to the man who shot his mother.

Defense attorneys repeatedly accused police of feeding information to witnesses in the case, a charge prosecutors angrily denied.

“There is a pattern in this case . . . of telling [witnesses] the police theory in the case,” said Richard Lasting, one of Moore’s attorneys. “We might as well have had this trial down at the police station.”