Burglar May Be Charged in Couple’s Deaths

A convicted burglar serving time for a Chatsworth house break-in may be charged as early as today with two counts of murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of an elderly West Hills couple whose home was robbed, ransacked and later set ablaze, Los Angeles police detectives said Monday.

Charges against Gregory Douglas Miner, 28, are expected to include allegations of committing a robbery in the commission of a murder, setting a fire to cover evidence and rape -- all special circumstances that could lead to the death penalty if he is convicted.

Investigators have gathered physical evidence implicating Miner in the Feb. 4, 2001, slayings of William Lasky, 76, and his wife, Bertha, 73, said Det. Dave Lambkin of the Los Angeles Police Department’s cold case homicide unit, who declined to elaborate.

Miner, who was served with an arrest warrant days before his scheduled release last Friday from Avenal State Prison in Central California, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Los Angeles Superior Court, authorities said.

Miner, who detectives said targeted older people in his burglaries, was tied to the Lasky slayings through “statements implicating himself in the burglary” of their home, Lambkin said.

Lambkin said investigators believe Miner had accomplices in the Lasky slayings, but declined to release their names, citing the ongoing criminal probe.

The Laskys were killed in the late afternoon or early evening, detectives said. The couple, who had been married nearly 53 years, had just returned from a vacation cruise.

According to investigators, Miner and his accomplices entered the couple’s home in the 7200 block of Pomelo Drive after they saw Bertha Lasky leave to go shopping.

“Believing the residence was empty, the suspects entered the house through an unlocked door,” Lambkin said.

They began scooping up valuables, including electronics, cameras and jewelry, in the living room when they were confronted by William Lasky, who emerged from a back bedroom, Lambkin said.

Lasky, a World War II Navy veteran, was taken hostage at knifepoint as the intruders continued to ransack the home. Sometime later, Bertha Lasky returned home and was also taken hostage before the couple were stabbed and left to die, the detective said.

A law enforcement source said that Bertha Lasky was sexually assaulted before she was killed.

The attacker or attackers then took the couple’s 1995 Buick Regal, putting nearly 100 miles on the odometer before returning in the vehicle and setting the house on fire early the next morning, authorities said.

Detectives said they determined that the Laskys’ Buick was driven after the killings because of a discrepancy between the car’s odometer reading and that listed in a recent auto service record, coupled with additional evidence.

Miner, who worked a variety of odd jobs from construction worker to electrician, became the focus of the Lasky investigation after his arrest in connection with the August 2001 burglary of an elderly couple’s home in the 7800 block of Fallbrook Avenue in Chatsworth.

During the burglary -- for which he was later convicted and sentenced to four years in state prison -- Miner took property that included musical instruments and tools, according to court records.

“What struck us was that, in the commission of the burglary, an elderly couple was targeted and the suspect entered after the victims left the house,” Lambkin said. “Besides taking property, Miner stole the victims’ car when they arrived home. Even more unusual, the suspect later returned the victims’ car and left it near the victims’ house.”

Miner even knocked on the victims’ door when he returned the car to tell them that he had seen two men abandon the vehicle near their home, Lambkin said.

The couple’s son, Scott Lasky, said his family has had more questions than answers in the time since his parents were killed.”The first year and a half was horrible,” said Lasky, the youngest of three Lasky children and the couple’s only son. “You can’t think about them without thinking about what happened to them, and you’re thinking about all the scenarios.

“But at a certain point,” he said, “you try to live your own life, and all of a sudden you can think about them in happier times. You don’t think about what happened to them at the very end and it doesn’t overpower you.”