Bail Hiked for Mother of Man Held in Slaying

The 51-year-old mother of accused murderer Justin Merriman was taken into custody Monday after a lengthy bail hearing in which prosecutors portrayed her as a danger to the community and an associate of her son’s white supremacist gang.

Wearing a lavender suit and pearl earrings, Beverlee Sue Merriman looked stunned as a judge ordered her held in jail in lieu of $2 million bail pending a January trial on conspiracy and perjury charges.

The Ventura bookkeeper hugged her lawyer and then placed her hands behind her back, allowing a deputy to snap a pair of handcuffs on her wrists before leading her from the courtroom.

Merriman had been free on $120,000 bail. She pleaded not guilty in June to charges of conspiring with her 26-year-old son to intimidate grand jury witnesses whose testimony led to his indictment on murder and related charges earlier this year.

But last week, prosecutors filed a motion to increase Merriman’s bail to $2 million--eight times the standard bail for murder cases--saying the mother has continued to scheme with her son to threaten and harm witnesses.

“Ms. Merriman is trying to help her son any way she can,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh argued in court Monday. “It’s sneaky, it’s criminal, and it has to be stopped. . . . These [witnesses] are in danger.”

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Justin Merriman was indicted in January in the rape, stabbing and bludgeoning of 20-year-old Katrina Montgomery after the pair left an Oxnard party thrown by his white supremacist friends in November 1992.

Montgomery, a Santa Monica College student, was never seen again. Years later, skinhead Lawrence Nicassio told the grand jury that he saw Justin Merriman fatally beat and stab Montgomery in a bedroom of Merriman’s Ventura home that night.

Prosecutors say Nicassio and other witnesses who helped their case have since been targeted by Merriman and his mother.

During Monday’s three-hour bail hearing, Bamieh told Ventura County Superior Court Judge Edward Brodie that Beverlee Sue Merriman has conspired with her son for the past nine months by hiding evidence and sending “rat lists” identifying grand jury witnesses to skinhead gang members.

“Ms. Merriman is basically an associate with the Skinhead Dogs,” Bamieh argued.

For five weeks in August and early September, authorities videotaped jail visits between the mother and son. The tapes show the pair communicating using hand signals and by using their fingers to write on a glass partition that divides inmates and visitors.

Mark Volpei, a district attorney’s office investigator, testified that it was clear the pair believed their conversations were being recorded, so they used “cryptic” hand signals to discuss Justin Merriman’s trial and methods to discourage witnesses from testifying.

During one visit, Beverlee Sue Merriman is seen on tape pulling a pen out of her shirt sleeve and writing a message on a napkin, then destroying it.

Based on his knowledge of the case, Volpei testified that he could identify which witnesses the pair were discussing when they wrote on the glass or used symbols, such as mimicking a person with a thick beard to indicate one bearded witness.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Richard Hanawalt suggested that mother and son were discussing potential defense witnesses in their cases and simply trying to avoid the listening devices of the district attorney’s office.

But Volpei said in his estimation, the conversations were surreptitious and focused on “getting the word out” to gang members about certain witnesses.

In his closing remarks, Bamieh called Beverlee Sue Merriman a “sophisticated criminal” whose prim appearance belies her threatening conduct.

Defense attorneys, however, assured Brodie that their client had done nothing wrong.

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Hanawalt suggested that the defendant placated her son by telling him she would assist him, but took no action. As for the gang association, Hanawalt called his client’s actions--such as driving one gang member to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and giving money to another--a demonstration of her “Christian charity.”

He said any problems with questionable jail communications are no longer an issue because another judge stripped Justin Merriman of his phone and visitation privileges last month.

But Brodie found the prosecution’s evidence persuasive and ordered Beverlee Sue Merriman’s bail increase.

“I’m satisfied,” he said, “that Mrs. Merriman continues to engage in criminal conduct.”

Her trial date is set for Jan. 18. Justin Merriman’s trial is set for March.