Attorney Says Client Lied, but Didn’t Kill

A defense attorney acknowledged Tuesday that accused killer Danny Ray Waring was deceptive to authorities, but contended that his client did not kill a Hells Angel and the biker’s girlfriend.

Prosecutors “proved . . . that Danny Waring is a liar,” said defense lawyer Dan Factor, in his closing argument in Waring’s first-degree murder trial in San Fernando Superior Court. “Danny Waring . . . admits he lied in this case. But a liar is not a murderer.”

Factor argued that another man, now dead, killed Laurence “Large Larry” Lajeunesse, 45, and his girlfriend, Tammie Ann Brannigan, 35.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Jonas, in closing arguments that began Monday, told jurors that Waring’s lies and inconsistent statements indicated a guilty state of mind. Waring was “unable to keep the facts straight,” Jonas said before Judge Shari Kreisler Silver. “Mr. Waring did both of these murders and personally pulled the trigger.”

Prosecutors allege that Waring, 44, was a Hells Angel wannabe who killed Lajeunesse, a longtime member of the motorcycle club, because of greed and a feud between the men over methamphetamine dealing. Late on the night of Dec. 3, 1998, Waring went to the cluttered Chatsworth industrial garage complex where the couple worked and lived to rob and kill them, Jonas said.

Waring shot the 450-pound Lajeunesse five or six times in the head and then shot Brannigan to eliminate her as a witness, the prosecutor said. The couple’s bodies were found by police a few days later.

During the trial, which was expected to take five weeks but has so far lasted more than three months, jurors were shown a videotape of a police interview of Waring, a tow-truck driver who also was a longtime informant for the California Highway Patrol.

Waring did not testify. But the CHP detective for whom Waring once worked did, for the defense, saying Waring had been a good informant who provided tips that led to arrests.

The prosecutor portrayed Brannigan as an innocent victim betrayed by the defendant, whom she knew. “She was kind to everybody. She helped everybody. She felt sorry for Danny Waring . . . when he was having family difficulties. Then he turns around and executes her,” Jonas said.

Factor, the defense attorney, said that Waring lied at times to protect his friends, and that he seemed nervous during police interviews and couldn’t keep his story straight because he has attention-deficit disorder.

Waring was a witness who heard the gunshots, Factor said, arguing that a friend of Waring’s, John Kopp, committed the murders.

Kopp, who prosecutors say was only a witness, committed suicide during Waring’s preliminary hearing. Factor also asked jurors not to believe prosecution witnesses and “every West Valley tweaker involved in this case.”

Closing arguments are scheduled to end today.