Money Cited as Motive in ’89 Slaying of Ex-Officer

Authorities charge that a former CHP officer accused of having his ex-partner killed a decade ago did so for financial gain, allegations the suspect’s attorney denied Sunday.

Michael Woods and two other men were arrested Friday in connection with the machine-gun ambush of Horace J. McKenna outside his Brea mansion. Woods and McKenna worked as California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers in the 1970s and later were business associates in several Los Angeles nude dance clubs.

Woods’ attorney, Richard Hirsch, said his client was booked with the special allegation of “murder for financial gain,” a designation that could result in a death sentence if he is convicted.

Sources familiar with the investigation said Sunday that prosecutors believe McKenna’s murder was part of a scheme to gain control of the dance clubs.

But Hirsch said that his client didn’t benefit financially from the slaying and that he had nothing to do with the crime.

“I don’t know any motive for Mr. Woods, especially financial gain,” Hirsch said. “It was a successful business before [McKenna’s death]. It’s been a successful business since. The money he’s made is on the up-and-up.”

According to state corporation records, the two clubs where Woods holds an interest generated annual revenue in excess of $3.9 million. Hirsch said that those clubs always have yielded healthy revenue and that Woods is making about the same money as when McKenna was alive.

At the time of the slaying, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office was looking at the strip clubs as part of a tax-fraud investigation. Homicide detectives early on probed a possible link between the investigation and McKenna’s death but could not find anything conclusive.

In addition to Woods, investigators arrested David Amos and John Patrick Sheridan in connection with the March 9, 1989, slaying. Both men worked with Woods at the clubs.

In a jailhouse interview Saturday, Sheridan said he is the gunman who waited outside McKenna’s estate, then killed the flamboyant ex-officer as he arrived home in a chauffeured limousine. He confessed to the crime 10 months ago and has been acting as an informant in the case for the Orange County district attorney’s office, he said.

The arrests came 3 1/2 years after investigators with the district attorney’s organized crimes unit reopened the case.

McKenna, a 6-foot-6 bodybuilder known as “Big Mac,” was forced out of the CHP in the 1970s and later spent four years in federal prison after being convicted of passing counterfeit money.

The attack occurred after midnight. As the driver left the car to open the gate to his estate, a man with a machine gun fired 20 rounds into the back seat.