Skinhead Convicted of Killing Black Man

A Lancaster skinhead who beat a homeless black man to death was convicted Thursday of premeditated, racially motivated murder--a crime that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

Los Angeles jurors said they were persuaded to convict Randall Lee Rojas of racially motivated murder because of his membership in the Nazi Low Riders--a white supremacist group--his stated desire to kill a member of a racial minority, as well as diary entries he made about eradicating nonwhites.

“My personal thought was that he was looking for an opportunity to kill a minority and here was a great opportunity,” said juror Fred Totten, 50, of Hancock Park. “Here was a black man who was vulnerable.”

Two other juries are still deliberating the fate of Rojas’ co-defendants, Ritch Bryant and Jessica Colwell, who prosecutors say also beat Milton Walker Jr. with a stick and board, hastening his death. Their defense lawyers say Walker was already dead when they got there.

The verdict was very encouraging, said Geraldine Washington, president of the NAACP in Los Angeles. “I think it sends a message to anybody who even thinks about committing a hate or racial crime that society is not going to take these things lightly and people are going to pay for their crimes. Enough is enough.”

The courtroom remained silent as the clerk read the verdicts. None of Rojas’ family members were present and the defendant--wearing his dark hair slicked back, khaki pants and a blue and white striped Oxford shirt--did not react.

As the jurors trailed out of the courtroom, one, a black woman, gave a thumbs up to the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey.

Prosecutors said reputed white supremacists Rojas and Michael Thornton beat and kicked Walker on Nov. 25, 1995. They had been told that Walker had beaten a white woman earlier in the evening. Thornton cooperated with authorities and is being prosecuted separately on lesser charges.

According to testimony, Rojas beat Walker in the head with a board and continued to hit and kick him after he lay motionless.

They left him bleeding but alive, prosecutors contend.

Bryant, however, returned with Colwell, and allegedly checked Walker’s pulse. Finding him alive, the suspects beat Walker with the same weathered board and a length of pipe.

Authorities had no suspects until a skinhead who was charged with Bryant in the unrelated stabbing of a black student tipped off federal agents.

During the trial, Rojas’ lawyer, Donald Calabria, argued that the beating was a spur of the moment act without the malicious intent needed for a conviction of first-degree murder. He also argued that Walker was alive when Rojas left and it was really Bryant and Colwell who killed him.

Bryant is serving an eight-year prison term for the September 1995 high school stabbing. Rojas served a two-year prison sentence for the beating of a Latino.