Lone Star double murderer to get death

Bill Gang

Thursday, June 26, 1997 | 11:48 a.m.

Stories of a double killer's volatile childhood and a psychologist's determination that he is "hot tempered" but able to function in prison didn't save Marlo Thomas from a death sentence.

It took a District Court jury only 2 1/2 hours of deliberations Wednesday to determine that the 23-year-old man, who admitted killing two men during a holdup at a Lone Star restaurant, should be shown no leniency.

Although he had cried earlier this week when he apologized to the families of his victims, Thomas exhibited little emotion when the verdict was read.

Wednesday, it was those families' turn to cry at the decision that concluded the two-week trial.

As Thomas prepared to return to jail, he turned to his mother and said simply, "I'll call you."

The jury in District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom found many reasons to hand down the death penalty -- including Thomas had been convicted of two violent felonies, was engaged in a robbery and killed more than one person in an effort to avoid apprehension.

One of Thomas' prior crimes involved the pistol whipping of a woman, during which he knocked out two teeth. He had pleaded guilty to that offense just 10 days before the April 15, 1996, incident at the Lone Star, at Cheyenne Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard.

Thomas also had been sent to prison for robbing a man at knifepoint, according to Deputy District Attorney David Roger.

What the jury didn't find was even one reason not to sentence Thomas to death -- not his age, his borderline retardation nor his history of mental and anger problems dating to childhood.

Deputy State Public Defender Peter LaPorta had urged the jury to make Thomas spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance for parole as a harsh alternative to the death sentence.

But prosecutors noted that Thomas already had been to prison and hadn't done well there.

He had thrown urine on a pregnant guard, attacked a fellow inmate, tried to punch a guard and spent much of his time locked in a single cell.

"He doesn't behave in prison," Roger said.

LaPorta had argued that Thomas "functions as a 14-year-old intellectually and emotionally."

"His wiring is different than yours and mine," he said, repeating the diagnosis of psychologist Dr. Thomas Kinsora.

"He's a dangerous man, make no mistake about that," LaPorta conceded. "But there's a glimmer of humanity in him and he need not be killed."

Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz countered that a low IQ is no justification for murder and "the death penalty is the only appropriate verdict."

"This is not a stupid individual, just mean," he said.

"Life without the possibility of parole is just not enough punishment," Schwartz continued. "Don't let justice be robbed in the name of mercy."

LaPorta had suggested that the question for the jury was whether Thomas "is so beyond redemption that he needs to be eliminated. Simply put, do you need to kill him."

The unanimous verdict of the jury was, yes.

The jurors had sat through days of testimony about how Thomas and then-15-year-old Kenya Hall -- the brother of his girlfriend -- had gone into the restaurant with a pistol and demanded money from the manager's safe.

Thomas knew about the safe because he had worked there for three months, until about six weeks before the incident.

While Hall was holding the gun on the manager, Vincent Odo, Thomas confronted two kitchen workers and stabbed them both to death with a fillet knife he picked up.

In a statement to police after he was arrested in Hawthorne a few hours later, Thomas said the men had attacked him when he tried to keep them from learning about the hold-up that was in progress.

Carl Dixon, 23, was stabbed 15 times and had 19 other wounds he suffered as he tried to fend off his attacker. Matthew Gianakis, 21, was stabbed once in the back and once in the chest. He managed to flee to a nearby convenience store but collapsed and died a few hours later at University Medical Center.

The question of guilty wasn't much of a question for the jury. Both Thomas and Hall had admitted their involvement and the manager had escaped and reported the crimes to police.

Even some of Thomas' family members had testified against him.

The only major issue still unresolved is Hall's culpability. He pleaded guilty to two robbery counts in a plea bargain that required him to testify against Thomas, but he filed a motion to back out of the deal.

If a judge permits that, he will stand trial on the original murder charges. If a judge does not, Hall will be sentenced on the robbery counts.