Ex-Skinhead Tells Jurors He Saw Woman Being Slain

Justin Merriman plunged a knife into college student Katrina Montgomery’s neck, and, as she begged for her life, beat her with a wrench and slit her throat, a witness testified Friday.

Former skinhead Larry Nicassio told jurors that, while spending the night at Merriman’s home in November 1992, he watched the defendant kill Montgomery after a brutal sexual assault.

With tears in his eyes, Nicassio stared at the floor of a silent courtroom and admitted that he was ashamed that he had done nothing to stop it.

“Did you help her?” asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh.

“No,” Nicassio replied.

“Why not?” Bamieh snapped.

“Because I was afraid,” Nicassio said.

It was Nicassio’s statement to prosecutors three years ago that broke open a long-stalled criminal investigation, ultimately landing Merriman, 28, in jail on murder, rape and related charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

When Merriman’s trial began two weeks ago, defense attorney Willard Wiksell told jurors that the entire case comes down to whether they believe Nicassio.

Wiksell also suggested in his opening statement that the 24-year-old former North Hollywood resident duped prosecutors into a sweetheart deal to avoid murder charges and could be the actual killer.

Cross-examination is set to begin Monday.

Prosecutors spent most of Friday questioning Nicassio about the party that preceded Montgomery’s disappearance, her alleged slaying and the role he played years later as an informant.

Nicassio, nicknamed “Li’l Larry,” was 16 and the youngest member of a San Fernando Valley skinhead gang, whose members lived in a flophouse in Sylmar and often partied with a skinhead gang in Ventura.

Nicassio told jurors that he idolized the older white supremacists, men like gang leaders Scott Porcho and Justin Merriman, men who had been to prison.

One Friday night, Nicassio, his cousin Ryan Bush, and a few other skinheads drove to Oxnard for a party at Porcho’s house, Nicassio testified.

Montgomery, a 20-year-old Santa Monica College student, was there. So was Merriman. And Nicassio said the chemistry between them was strained.

According to previous testimony, Merriman was attracted to Montgomery, but she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in him.

About 5 a.m., Porcho’s wife gave Merriman, Nicassio and Bush a ride to the Ventura condominium where Merriman lived with his mother and sister. Merriman telephoned Montgomery, and as Bush and Nicassio settled into sleeping bags on the floor, she showed up with an overnight bag.

Nicassio said she changed clothes and climbed into bed with Merriman. Then, he said, he began to hear noises and looked up to see the defendant straddling Montgomery and demanding sex.

“She was saying, ‘No, Justin,’ ” Nicassio testified. “He smacked her in the face.

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After forcing her to have sex, Merriman attacked her with a knife as she was dressing and then attacked her with a wrench, Nicassio testified.

Nicassio said he told Merriman to let her go.

But he said the defendant replied: “No, she’ll rat on me.”

When it was over, Nicassio said, Merriman wrapped Montgomery in a pink blanket and sleeping bags from the floor. “He was saying, ‘We have to make a plan to cover this up,’ ” Nicassio said.

At Merriman’s direction, he drove Montgomery’s pickup truck with her body in the back to Sylmar, where Bush and Merriman placed it in a large drainpipe off a dirt road, Nicassio said.

After wiping away their fingerprints with paint thinner, he said, they drove the truck off a winding mountain road in Angeles National Forest and threw the murder weapons in an industrial park dumpster.

Two days later, Nicassio said, he and Bush went back and buried Montgomery. In late 1997, Nicassio was arrested on suspicion of Montgomery’s murder after Ventura County prosecutors took over the case. In March 1998, he cut a deal and agreed to lead them to her body.

But the rural area where Nicassio said they buried the woman was paved over, and her remains could not be found.