2nd Skinhead Convicted in Beating Death of Transient

An avowed white supremacist already serving prison time for stabbing a black student at Antelope Valley High School was convicted Friday of killing a Lancaster homeless man because he was black, the worst in a series of race-related crimes that peaked in that High Desert community in 1995.

Ritch Bryant, 20, watched two buddies beat and kick Milton Walker Jr. and leave him unconscious in a dirt lot two days after Thanksgiving in 1995. As they headed back home, Bryant insisted on returning to finish off the 43-year-old vagrant so he could earn the right to wear lightning bolt tattoos, a badge of courage among Lancaster skinheads calling themselves Nazi Low Riders.

“How could you be 16 and be willing to take someone’s life just to get some stupid tattoos?” juror Tim Sullivan, 37, of Downey, asked in disbelief. “It was all for status. He wanted to be superior in his gang.”

Jurors found the killing rose to the level of first degree murder and was motivated by racial hatred, a special circumstance punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A day earlier, a separate jury found co-defendant Randall Lee Rojas, 24, guilty. A third jury continues to deliberate the fate of Jessica Colwell, 20, who allegedly returned with Bryant and hit Walker in the head with a pipe.

Prosecutors said the Walker case marks the first time in memory that a Los Angeles County jury has convicted anyone of race-related murder.

Bryant wore a blue jail uniform and seemed angry and agitated. In the middle of the reading of the verdict, Bryant whispered in his lawyer’s ear that he wanted to “get out of here,” then leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, showing a tattoo.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey and defense lawyer Norman Kallen were prohibited from discussing the case by a gag order issued by Superior Court Judge Lance Ito.

All of the defendants confessed to having hit Walker, although they tried to minimize their roles. None of them took the stand during the trial, which focused mainly on the issue of time of death. Because Walker was beaten twice that night by different defendants, each claimed the others were responsible for his death.

One medical expert, hired by Colwell, testified that Walker died “seconds to minutes” after Rojas delivered the initial blows with a weathered board. The others, however, testified that he could have lingered for hours.

Lacey relied in part on the testimony of a medical examiner, who said all of the blows to the face contributed to Walker’s death and that there were no post-mortem injuries on the victim to prove Bryant’s culpability.

“It’s just amazing to me that in this day and age this is still going on,” said a 60-year-old Los Angeles juror who declined to give his name.

Bryant is now serving an eight-year state prison term for the September 1995 stabbing in which he and four or five other juveniles attacked a black student as he walked across the high school baseball field. Bryant, who admits to “Aryan beliefs,” punched and kicked the victim as his buddies stabbed him with screwdrivers.

“If you want me to say I’m sorry, I won’t,” Bryant later told a probation officer, according to court records. “The victim got what he deserved.”