Trial Starts For Convicted Serial Killer In Four Additional Murders
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A convicted serial killer raped and murdered four additional victims, posing their nude bodies to "shock" whoever discovered them, a prosecutor told jurors Monday, but a defense attorney countered that there is not enough evidence to hold his client responsible.
Opening statements were delivered in the trial of 54-year-old Michael H. Hughes, who is already serving a life prison term without the possibility of parole for the four slayings of which he was convicted in 1998.
Hughes, a former security guard, could face the death penalty if found guilty of the current murder charges, which include the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder during the commission of a rape and a prior murder conviction.
DNA evidence "conclusively" links Hughes to the strangulation murders of Yvonne Coleman, Verna Williams, Deanna Wilson and Deborah Jackson, who were killed between 1986 and 1993, said Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman.
Silverman said jurors will hear evidence in the deaths of Coleman, Williams and Jackson, but prosecutors will reserve the fourth case for the penalty phase of the trial if Hughes is convicted of first-degree murder.
Hughes' DNA profile, the prosecutor said, is "extremely rare," telling the jury that the chance that someone else killed Williams was "one in 10 quadrillion."
Other evidence, including the posing of the bodies, suggests Hughes' "signature" as well as "a pattern" that reveals his mental state, Silverman said.
Defense attorney Norman H. Kallen conceded in his opening statement that while it would be "very difficult" to establish that Hughes was not present at the murder scenes, there is no proof of when and where Hughes "had
contact" with the victims.
"This is a case of forensics," Kallen told the jury. "There are no eyewitness, no confession."
The first witness, ex-water treatment plant inspector Jimmy Lobato, told how he came across the body of 15-year-old Coleman near a barbecue pit in an Inglewood park after dawn on Jan. 22, 1986.
Jurors were shown graphic black-and-white slides of the victims' nude bodies, their legs spread apart, posed to shock whoever stumbled across them.
In Coleman's case, Silverman contends Hughes placed one of the dead girl's hands between her legs to further upset whoever discovered her.
Lobato said he placed newspapers over the girl's body to preserve the victim's "dignity" and protect elementary school students who were walking nearby.
The sight, Lobato testified, "is etched in my memory" and will "haunt me for the rest of my life."
The victim "was just a young, precious girl," Lobato said, adding that he was "just heartbroken" about what happened to her.
Hughes, a large man dressed in a sweater and long-sleeved button-down shirt and wearing eyeglasses, rarely looked at the screen, taking notes throughout the morning's testimony.
He has been in custody since 1993.
The trial is expected to last about a month.
