Mother Lying to Protect Merriman, Attorney Says

A shouting match broke out Friday in Justin Merriman’s murder trial as prosecutor Ron Bamieh accused the defendant’s mother of lying on the witness stand to protect her son from murder charges.

The outburst on the final day of testimony prompted Ventura County Superior Court Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. to call a 20-minute recess, during which he asked the prosecutor to control his tone.

Bamieh had gone round after round with Beverlee Sue Merriman, who was recently released from state prison after pleading guilty to conspiring with her son to intimidate witnesses.

Her plea came last year after she broke down during her own trial, sobbing “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” after reading a transcript in which her son allegedly refers to his role in hiding Santa Monica College student Katrina Montgomery’s body.

On Friday, Beverlee Sue Merriman told jurors that she never conspired with anyone, and she denied that her emotional outburst was triggered by reading the document.

“My attorneys told me to do that,” she said. “I was not guilty of anything.”

Justin Merriman, a 28-year-old skinhead gang member, is facing murder, rape and related charges in connection with Montgomery’s 1992 slaying. She disappeared Nov. 28 of that year after leaving a party in Oxnard. Her blood-stained truck was found abandoned in the Angeles National Forest, and she was never seen alive again.

Prosecutors contend that she drove to the Merriman residence in Ventura after the party. Two skinhead gang members spending the night there testified they saw the defendant rape, stab and bludgeon Montgomery before dawn on Nov. 28, 1992.

But Beverlee Sue Merriman, 53, told jurors Wednesday that she heard no cries or screams coming from her son’s bedroom and never saw Montgomery that morning.

She testified that the only sound she heard was a boy urinating off a bridge connecting the main house to her son’s room over the garage.

What significance the boy’s alleged presence could play in the case was not entirely clear, although Beverlee Sue Merriman testified that she believes the boy could have been one of the two skinheads, who defense attorneys contend may be the real killers.

Bamieh seized on the urinating boy story Friday, suggesting during a blistering cross-examination that it was a lie--one of several the prosecutor contended she told during her two-day testimony this week.

Beverlee Sue Merriman acknowledged that she only recently remembered hearing the boy and seeing the back of his “shiny bald head” outside her bedroom window. At Bamieh’s request, she drew a stick-figure on a large diagram of her home to illustrate where she saw him.

“Are you absolutely positive that is where . . . the boy was standing?” Bamieh asked.

“Yes, I am positive,” Beverlee Sue Merriman answered.

“How did you see his face, ma’am?” Bamieh asked.

“I didn’t see his face,” she snapped. “His back was turned to me.”

Bamieh asked her to look at the diagram, at which point the witness realized that based on her drawing, the boy would have been facing her window. The mother tried to explain that she was confused by the exhibit, but Bamieh interrupted her.

“No, ma’am, you didn’t see anybody there,” he bellowed, standing behind the prosecution table in a dark suit.

“No, you’re wrong!” the witness yelled back as defense attorney Willard Wiksell raised his voice in an objection.

“Mr. Bamieh, please,” Judge O’Neill interrupted. He ordered a recess and, after the jurors left the courtroom, calmly turned to the prosecutor and said: “Mr. Bamieh, I would just ask you to get control of your tone of voice.”

On redirect examination, Wiksell showed Beverlee Sue Merriman the diagram again. She explained that she had been confused and placed a large red “X” on the diagram to clarify where she saw the boy.

“I got the whole house turned around,” she said. “The story is still the same.”

The memory of the bald-headed boy was triggered while she was serving her prison sentence for conspiracy last year, she said, explaining why she never mentioned it to a grand jury or investigators in the case.

“Are you making that up?” Wiksell asked her.

“No,” she said, adding later that she loves her son but wouldn’t lie under oath.

In regard to her guilty plea in April 2000, Beverlee Sue Merriman testified that she was advised by her lawyers to change her plea and agreed. “I was under so much duress,” she said. “I was overwhelmed.”

After the mother was excused and the defense rested its case, Bamieh opened a brief rebuttal case that primarily focused on discrediting Beverlee Sue Merriman.

He also called investigator Mark Volpei to the stand to testify about a letter Justin Merriman wrote to his mother after her guilty plea.

In the letter, copied by authorities on May 9, 2000, before it was mailed, the defendant states that he read a newspaper article about her tearful outburst in court and asks whether she “wigged out” as reported.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Wednesday.