Murderer Apologizes for Beating Woman, 73

With his life on the line, convicted killer Kenneth McKinzie apologized to jurors Thursday for beating a 73-year-old Oxnard woman and leaving her body in an irrigation ditch.

“I feel nasty, filthy, for what I’ve done,” McKinzie testified of the crime he committed 3 1/2 years ago. “She’s dead because of me.”

Last fall a jury found the 39-year-old Oxnard man guilty of murder and other charges for killing Ruth Avril during an attempted robbery at her Dollie Street apartment.

But at the penalty phase of the trial, jurors could not agree on whether McKinzie should be executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A new jury is now weighing his fate in a second proceeding.

On Thursday, the defense opened its case by calling the defendant’s parents to the witness stand. It was his mother’s 65th birthday. Then McKinzie testified.

Speaking in a soft, low voice, the four-time felon told the jury he had previously lied about his involvement in Avril’s slaying, but that the guilt had left him in a state of “spiritual warfare.”

Wracked by his own inner turmoil, he said, he leaned close to his attorney during jury selection last month and whispered the truth.

“The only way I could be at peace is to take responsibility for what I did,” McKinzie testified. “Ruth Avril’s life was cut short, and I’m responsible for that. . . . A lot of people are saying, ‘Kenny, you’re crazy. You’re going to die.’ But if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.”

McKinzie took the witness stand at 9:30 a.m. and remained there until nearly 5 p.m. under dogged questioning by both his lawyer and the prosecution. Cross-examination continues this morning.

At times choking back tears as he spoke, McKinzie tried to convince jurors that despite the slaying and other run-ins with the law, he was a Christian man who had been brought up in church. He said he asked God for forgiveness long ago.

But while admitting he is “responsible” for Avril’s death, McKinzie denied he had killed her intentionally. He offered this account of what happened on Dec. 21, 1995, the night Avril died:

McKinzie said he had recently been paroled on a drug possession charge. He told jurors he didn’t have a job and was staying at his girlfriend’s home, situated across an alley from Avril’s two-story apartment building.

*

McKinzie said he was sitting outside to smoke a cigarette and was worrying about how he was going to buy Christmas presents for his children when he heard Avril’s door open. He knew she came downstairs at night to turn off her garage light and decided to rob her.

McKinzie said he took off his shoes, slipped his socks over his hands, and followed Avril into the open garage.

“When she clicked the light off, I grabbed her,” he testified.

He then said Avril cried out for help and he covered her mouth. She bit his hand, he testified, and he punched her, grabbed her head and slammed it onto the concrete floor of the garage. Realizing she was unconscious, he looked around to make sure no one saw what had occurred, McKinzie said.

McKinzie said he then picked up her keys and decided to put Avril in the trunk of her car. She started to wake up, and he accidentally slammed the trunk lid on her head, he said.

Covered in blood, McKinzie drove Avril’s car--with her pinned in the trunk--to his mother’s house, also in Oxnard, where he changed clothes.

Then he drove Avril to a narrow, dead-end road near the Point Mugu Navy base. He opened the trunk and Avril started to get out, he testified.

McKinzie said she tripped and fell into the ditch. He told the jury he left her there and went back to rob her apartment. He said it didn’t occur to him that she would die.

“I just wanted to get away from her,” he testified. “I knew she was hurt, but I didn’t think she was hurt that bad.”

McKinzie said the next day he heard on the TV news that a woman’s body was found on Arnold Road. He said he knew he was responsible.

The coroner concluded Avril had died as a result of blunt-force injuries and strangulation.

*

But McKinzie repeatedly told the jury Thursday he never choked Avril.

On cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald Glynn attacked the defendant’s story and cited statements McKinzie allegedly made to friends about repeatedly hitting and choking Avril.

McKinzie admitted he had actually hit Avril “three or four” times. And he acknowledged that even after learning she was dead, he went back to rob her apartment two more times.

McKinzie said he gave Avril’s camera to his 14-year-old daughter for Christmas.

At one point during cross-examination, Glynn posted 15 graphic autopsy photos of Avril’s bruised head and torso at the front of the courtroom and asked the defendant to explain how she got her wounds.

And he focused on McKinzie’s false testimony last year. McKinzie admitted he had lied numerous times on the witness stand and fabricated a story that implicated a former Oxnard resident in the crime.

“So you were trying to save your neck by involving an innocent person?” Glynn asked.

“Yes, but that is why I am here right now saying I’m responsible,” McKinzie said. “I lied because I was scared and I didn’t want anyone to know what I did to that lady.”

After the jury was excused late Thursday afternoon, prosecutors indicated they may want to recall the coroner to refute the defendant’s testimony on not having strangled the victim.

Earlier in the day, under questioning from defense attorney Willard Wiksell, McKinzie told jurors there had been many struggles in his life, starting as a teenager.

*

McKinzie said he was a poor student who only attended classes so he could participate in sports. But by his junior year, he said, his grades were so bad he was forced to quit the football and baseball teams. He said that’s when he decided to quit school altogether. It’s a choice he deeply regrets, he said.

“I know for a fact if I stayed in school I would not be here today,” McKinzie said. “But all I knew was the street life.” McKinzie said after leaving school he quickly fell into drugs, using marijuana and PCP. He spent the past 10-years battling an addiction to cocaine, he said.

As he spoke, McKinzie’s mother and father sat in front of the courtroom, occasionally dabbing at tears. Betty McKinzie testified she loved and depended on her eldest son, even though he had once struck her during an argument. He later apologized, she said.

Betty McKinzie also recalled the day a few weeks ago when her son finally told her he was responsible for Avril’s death.

“He said it was something he did and he was sorry he did it,” the woman said. “He said, ‘Mama, I just need to talk to somebody. It’s driving me crazy.’ ”