Strohmeyer attorneys challenging confession

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 1997 | 10:52 a.m.

Attorneys for a California teenager charged with the murder and rape of a 7-year-old girl in a Primm hotel-casino are continuing to challenge the confession he made.

The latest issue involves a garbled tape recording made by Long Beach police after 19-year-old Jeremy Strohmeyer was arrested there and discussed the May 25 death of Sherrice Iverson.

Authorities say the confession was recorded on two tapes, but the tape that recorded the first half of the interview is unintelligible because of what was described as a mechanical problem.

Strohmeyer's attorney, Leslie Abramson, said Monday during a hearing in Clark County District Judge Don Chairez's courtroom that the first half of the interview would have recorded Strohmeyer's desire to have an attorney present during the confession.

The second half of the tape dealt with the confession, Abramson said after Monday's hearing.

Abramson and Las Vegas attorney Richard Wright want an independent expert to analyze the inaudible tape to learn whether the interview can be resurrected or if it can be determined whether the tape was purposely obliterated.

Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen said the tape already has been turned over to the FBI for such testing. She said she has not received the results.

During a hearing next month, attorneys will argue the legal merits of the three confessions Strohmeyer made and whether other evidence seized during a search of the Strohmeyer home should be allowed at the April 20 trial.

In court documents, defense attorneys alleged that the search warrant investigators used to enter the Strohmeyer house was "overbroad" and not justified by supporting documents, as required by law.

Specifically, attorneys attacked the seizure of the teenager's computer because nothing had been articulated to connect it to the slaying. They also contended that a second search warrant would be necessary to search the computer's memory.

The defense documents conceded, however, that there was sufficient reason to search clothing and other items alleged to have been worn at the scene, receipts from the hotel, cigarettes or identification cards.

The court motion asks Chairez to order that the computer and any information within it, plus other items obtained through the search warrant, be kept from jurors at the trial.

Strohmeyer was arrested after security videotapes of two body-pierced men at the Primm Valley hotel-casino were broadcast in Southern California hours after the girl's body was found propped on a toilet in a women's restroom.

The men, seen walking away from the restroom, were identified by friends and classmates.

Strohmeyer's friend, David Cash Jr., has confessed that they are the ones in the video and testified against Strohmeyer before the grand jury that indicted him. Cash has not been charged.