Murder Case

Amber Willard GLENDALE -- Glendale Police are still asking for the public's help in solving a year-old murder case. Renata Reich was found dead on her front lawn in the 100 block of Wonderview Drive on April 16, 2000. She was 66. An autopsy showed she died from head trauma but police have said they have few leads as finding her killer. The area around her hillside home was frequented at night because of its view of the surrounding area, police said.

PASADENA — A Superior Court judge on Monday ordered prosecutors in the hit-and-run murder trial of Ara Grigoryan to meet with his defense team and resolve evidence issues that have slowed court proceedings to a near standstill. The order came after defense attorney Christopher Pfau told the court that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has continually stunted efforts to confirm all of the evidence against his client, who is charged in the hit-and-run death of Elizabeth Sandoval nearly a year ago. “I do believe there’s additional discovery,” Pfau said.

GLENDALE— The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a federal jury's decision that a Sunland man had been wrongly detained by Glendale police as part of a murder investigation. In upholding the 2009 verdict, the appellate panel determined that evidence showing that Glendale police officers lacked probable cause to arrest Edmond Ovasapyan was sufficient enough to support the federal jury's decision to award him $1.31 million. Trial evidence showing that the officers "misled the prosecutor and withheld exculpatory information from her" also supported the jury's findings, the judges said in their opinion.

After a nearly week of deliberations, the jury in the murder case against Marcos Costa, the driver of a brakeless big rig that killed two people in La Cañada in April 2009, announced Thursday they had reached a verdict on at least some of the counts. It is expected to be announced in Pasadena Superior Court at 3:15 pm.

The United States Supreme Court has struck again. In an absolutely horrible decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that in a criminal case, if a defendant's lawyer has a conflict of interest, and that becomes the grounds upon which the defendant seeks a new trial, the defendant needs to prove that the conflict of interest adversely affected the lawyer's performance. Well, of course it did. This is absolutely ridiculous. This was a murder case, and the defendant's attorney had previously represented the murder victim!

Darleene Barrientos After three years of preliminary hearings and court appointments, Raul Aguirre's accused killers may finally have their days in court. Karen Terteryan, 20, Rafael Gevorgyan, 18, and Anait Msryan, 16, are accused of beating Aguirre to death and stabbing him May 5, 2000, when he tried to intervene in what police said was a gang fight. The trial is scheduled to start April 7 in Department 108 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center at 210 W. Temple Street.

Re "Jury without options might feel like it has all-or-nothing choice," The Counselor's Corner, March 5, by defense attorney Charles J. Unger (Also, the News-Press should give some knowledgeable prosecuting attorney an "Opposing Corner" to adequately respond to Unger's sometimes too emotionally swayed "defense" column): First, notice that Unger doesn't address the facts that convicted Alfredo Valdez of "robbery murder," as if this heinous crime isn't in the first instance relevant to the extreme penalty -- death.

In recent weeks, the response of many in the community to the sentencing of our son, Michael, has touched our hearts. Despite the one-sided reporting of the media, residents of the Foothill communities have enough information to know that something has gone horribly wrong. There is some comfort in knowing that, in spite of the efforts of the Glendale Police and the district attorney, the truth about this case will eventually come to light. Our son has been imprisoned for the killings of his two friends.

Tim Willert PASADENA -- The only person to be charged with the murders of two boys on a La Crescenta playground pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Pasadena Superior Court. Michael Demirdjian, 15, entered the plea during his arraignment on two counts of murder and two counts of robbery. The murder charges carry special circumstances of multiple murder, torture and robbery. In the same courtroom Wednesday, Judge Joseph A. De Vanon delayed a pretrial conference for seven teenagers charged with burglary, but ordered each to be on call as witnesses in the murder case, which resumes Jan. 3 with a pretrial hearing.

The case involving David Garcia, the man accused of killing a Burbank police officer in 2003, was postponed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court to Jan. 10 as attorneys continue to review evidence. The decision to allow more time was made in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday. “We turned over some additional information the defense was requesting and the court granted them a 90-day continuance,” said county Deputy District Attorney Frank Tavelman, of the crimes against peace officers section.

After a nearly week of deliberations, the jury in the murder case against Marcos Costa, the driver of a brakeless big rig that killed two people in La Cañada in April 2009, announced Thursday they had reached a verdict on at least some of the counts. It is expected to be announced in Pasadena Superior Court at 3:15 pm.

PASADENA - A 47-year-old Glendale man was sentenced Tuesday to serve 16 years to life in prison for killing his wife and microwaving his Pomeranian to death. Jurors found John Levin guilty of second-degree murder in June for killing his 35-year-old wife, Michelle Levin, after he pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty for microwaving his dog. “I am told that it is a sin to not forgive and to harbor vengeance in your heart,” Michelle Levin's father, Frank Raymie, told Levin in a Pasadena courtroom.

GLENDALE— The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a federal jury's decision that a Sunland man had been wrongly detained by Glendale police as part of a murder investigation. In upholding the 2009 verdict, the appellate panel determined that evidence showing that Glendale police officers lacked probable cause to arrest Edmond Ovasapyan was sufficient enough to support the federal jury's decision to award him $1.31 million. Trial evidence showing that the officers "misled the prosecutor and withheld exculpatory information from her" also supported the jury's findings, the judges said in their opinion.

GLENDALE — Armenian prosecutor Mikaelyan Geisha remembers some years ago when if he wanted to work with Glendale authorities on a case, it took a long time just to present it to them. But cooperation with Armenian officials has improved a great deal during the last five years, he said. “It’s a lot easier than several years ago when it would take a year to present a case to the other side,” he said through an interpreter as he visited Glendale police Friday with another prosecutor from Armenia, Baghdasazyan Khachatuz.

After an eight-year lull, San Bernardino County sheriff?s detectives are once again actively investigating the murder of a La Cañada Flintridge couple. It was on Feb. 9, 2000, that the bodies of La Cañada residents Harold ?Skip? Tillman, 55, and his wife Joni, 51, were found in two isolated desert graves in Yucaipa, about 75 miles east of La Cañada. The couple had last been seen on Feb. 6, 2000, after having dinner at J.J. Steakhouse in Pasadena. The investigation into their deaths had yielded little to no information and had stalled.

PASADENA — A hearing was continued Tuesday in the case of a 45-year-old Glendale man accused of fatally stabbing his girlfriend in December. Soo Kim, who also goes by the name Brandon Kim, is charged with one count of murder. He is being held in a Los Angeles County jail on $1 million bail. He is scheduled to appear Sept. 5 in Pasadena Superior Court. Soo Kim was arrested on Dec. 17 in a Koreatown motel on suspicion of murder after police found 52-year-old Susan Kim dead on the floor of her kitchen in her Raymond Avenue home.

PASADENA — A Superior Court judge on Monday ordered prosecutors in the hit-and-run murder trial of Ara Grigoryan to meet with his defense team and resolve evidence issues that have slowed court proceedings to a near standstill. The order came after defense attorney Christopher Pfau told the court that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has continually stunted efforts to confirm all of the evidence against his client, who is charged in the hit-and-run death of Elizabeth Sandoval nearly a year ago. “I do believe there’s additional discovery,” Pfau said.

BURBANK ? As a 27-year-old Eagle Rock woman suspected of slaying her 20-month-old baby awaited arraignment, the woman?s father was distraught over charges he said are unbelievable. Ana Regina Lim was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder after County-USC Medical Center doctors declared her daughter, Mikea Lim, brain-dead on Tuesday. Mikea had been in a coma since March 5, when her grandparents took her from their Glendale home ? where the mother and child were staying ?