Witness Tells of Torture of Slain Man

Sandra Johnson had talked about the torture before.

She had testified about the burns and described the dark room with the red carpet where the victim lay helplessly gagged and tied, with a terror-stricken look on his face.

But even as she took the witness stand Monday for a third time--testifying against a third defendant charged with the 1996 murder of a Redondo Beach man burned alive in the Ventura County back country--Johnson trembled and cried.

“I didn’t want to see it,” she told a jury, wiping away tears.

Johnson was among the first witnesses to testify at the trial of 20-year-old Matthew Ormsby, a Hawthorne resident who is facing charges of murder, kidnapping and torture in connection with the slaying of 20-year-old Anthony Guest.

Ormsby, who was 16 at the time but is being prosecuted as an adult, is the last of three defendants to stand trial in the case.

Billy Lyn Davis, 23, and Spencer Rawlin Brasure, 30, both of the Los Angeles area, were separately convicted of first-degree murder in 1998 and 1999. Davis was given life in prison, and Brasure was sentenced to death.

Ormsby was arrested last fall after prosecutors uncovered additional evidence that they say shows he also participated in the killing.

In opening statements Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Calvert told jurors they would hear evidence in the next week of how Ormsby helped Davis and Brasure transport Guest in a trash can to a campground near Gorman, where they doused him with gasoline and set him on fire.

Witnesses heard Ormsby’s voice coming from the room where Guest was tortured, Calvert said, and two jail informants reported that the defendant later bragged and laughed about how he had helped kill Guest.

Defense attorney Alan Saltzman did not give an opening statement and declined to comment on the case.

His client faces a possible life sentence without possibility of parole if convicted of the charges, as well as special allegations that the killing was committed during a kidnapping and torture.

Guest was abducted under false pretenses on Sept. 7, 1996, and taken to Davis’ home in Hawthorne, where he was bound and tortured for hours with a makeshift electrical device, according to court testimony.

Authorities say the assailants knew Guest through a circle of Los Angeles area methamphetamine addicts and were trying to get back at him for stealing from them.

Johnson, 33, told jurors that she sought out Davis and Brasure to beat up Guest after he threatened her with violence. She said they formed a plan in which she was to take Guest to a designated location and they would beat him.

But the plan changed, she said, when Brasure showed up with a gun. He bound Guest’s wrists with plastic ties and forced Johnson to drive the three of them to Davis’ house, Johnson said. She left but returned hours later.

When she entered the house, Johnson said, she heard a buzzing sound and then a low moan coming from the back room, which they called the “red room” for its bright carpet. There, she saw Guest hogtied face down with duct tape across his mouth and burns all over his body.

“Spencer had something in his hand,” she said, “and he was shocking Tony with it.”

Johnson testified that she tried to walk past Brasure, who was holding a wire rigged to a car battery. But he stopped her and forced her to stare into Guest’s eyes, she said.

“He was hurt,” she said, weeping.

Johnson retreated to a different room and listened to the torture--too frightened to intervene, she said. After about 10 minutes, she heard Ormsby’s voice and Brasure giving him an instruction.

“He told Matt to get him a trash can,” she said.

Johnson testified that she heard a sound like a plastic trash can thumping into a glass door, followed by various voices and Guest’s moaning. Then the voices stopped, and a car engine started. Johnson said when she went back to the room, everyone was gone.

On cross-examination, Johnson acknowledged that she was initially arrested on suspicion of murder in the case and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping. She said she is facing one year in jail as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

She also admitted having bought and sold drugs, and acknowledged that her actions four years ago were influenced by methamphetamine use.

The jury also heard testimony Monday from a jail inmate who briefly shared a cell with Ormsby. The cellmate, who was not present in court, had testified a few months ago during a court proceeding. His account was read to the jury from a transcript.

According to the cellmate’s account, Ormsby admitted hitting and kicking Guest while he was tied up. He also described how Brasure tortured the victim with a torch and a staple gun and forced him to eat broken glass.

The cellmate testified that Ormsby went on to describe how he retrieved a trash can and helped place Guest into it before driving with Davis and Brasure to the Hungry Valley Recreational Area, where they placed Guest under a shrub and set him on fire while he was still alive.

Trial testimony is scheduled to resume today.