Trial Begins in Slaying of Homeless Black Man

Using a larger-than-life image of the victim’s corpse as a grisly visual aid, prosecutors told jurors in opening statements Tuesday that four Antelope Valley teenagers bragged to friends about beating a homeless man to death because he was black and then later confessed the attack to investigators.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, I think we all hoped that the violent expression of racism would be extinct right now,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey told jurors. “But you are about to learn that that is not the case.”

Three separate juries are hearing the hate crime murder case against the teenagers accused in the fatal November 1995 attack on Milton Walker Jr. Prosecutors allege the teens espoused racist beliefs and attacked Walker because he was an African American.

“These four skinheads--Ritch Bryant, Randy Rojas, Michael Thornton and Jessica Colwell--sacrificed the life of Milton Walker in order to earn the right to wear lightning-bolt tattoos,” Lacey told jurors. “In the skinhead group with which they were associated, this evil symbol is earned by killing a minority.”

If the juries agree that Bryant, Rojas and Colwell killed Walker out of racial hatred, they face life in prison without the possibility of parole. Thornton earlier confessed to beating Walker and implicated the others. He is being tried separately on lesser charges of assault.

Defense lawyers do not contest the attack, but each says his or her client did not deliver the fatal blows. Walker was allegedly beaten twice the night he died.

Lacey said Bryant, Rojas and Thornton were approached about 8 p.m. on Nov. 25, 1995, by a white woman who told them a black man had kicked her.

“According to their skinhead philosophy, a black man should be punished for hitting a white woman,” Lacey told jurors. “And Bryant, Rojas and Thornton decided to seek revenge.”

As they neared the vacant lot where Walker usually slept, they saw him shove a white man, one of his homeless friends, and were allegedly further resolved to beat him. Thornton kicked and punched him, Lacey said, then Rojas took over, kicking Walker and then bludgeoning him with a 2-by-4 piece of lumber. They allegedly yelled racial epithets during the attack.

The trio then left. But Bryant, who Lacey said was intent on getting his lightning-bolt tattoo, later returned with Colwell. Bryant then allegedly beat Walker with a stick while Colwell smashed his head with a pipe.

Some jurors were stunned by the description of the attack, as well as by the photographs of Walker’s corpse that were projected on a wall.

Lacey also displayed the piece of wood and the L-shaped pipe found next to Walker’s body, covered in his blood. She showed the jurors pictures of Rojas’ and Bryant’s lightning bolts and other racist tattoos.

Rojas, 24, dressed in a navy blue jacket, light blue shirt and khaki pants, his hair slicked back, sat motionless. Colwell, 20, looked bored, fussing with her bright blue velvet top, wire-rim glasses and hair.

Bryant, a lanky 20-year-old, also looked bored. He clasped his hands between his legs and squinted at documents as his defense lawyer described him as a racist and a braggart but not a killer.

“He possibly witnessed the events,” said his lawyer, Norman Kallen, “but he did not do the crime.”

Kallen disputed earlier sworn statements by Thornton that Bryant was urging Rojas on during the first attack. He admitted that Bryant later returned with Colwell, but he said Walker was already dead during the second beating.

Colwell’s lawyer said he also intends to show Walker was killed during the first beating--but he includes Bryant among those responsible for the death.

In an effort to shield their own clients, both John Daley, Colwell’s lawyer, and Kallen were more dramatic in their description of the first beating than was the prosecution.

“These guys attacked him in a frenzy. They were all beating on him, using the stick and the pipe,” said Daley, offering a completely different version of the attack. “I believe that the evidence will show that Milton Walker was beaten to a pulp and left for dead by Randy Rojas, Ritch Bryant and Michael Thornton.”

Rojas’ lawyer, Donald Calabria, reserved his opening remarks until the end of the prosecution’s case. He has said he intends to show Rojas did not beat Walker out of racial hatred.

Daley denies Colwell is a skinhead. He said he intends to prove that she was talking about her friends’ beliefs, not her own, when she allegedly told federal officials that blacks were born to be slaves.