Convicted killers seek fourth trial

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 10 a.m.

Dale Flanagan and Randolph Moore, convicted in one of Las Vegas' most notorious murders of the 1980s, probably will have to wait until early next year to learn if they will get a fourth trial or have their convictions overturned.

Cal Potter and David Schieck, attorneys for the two death row inmates, on Thursday asked for another six months to investigate issues and file supplemental court documents. They were granted a Nov. 30 court date for a status check by District Judge Michael Douglas.

"An evidentiary hearing will have to be set then -- probably sometime early next year," Potter said after the brief hearing in which the two killers, who are imprisoned in Northern Nevada, were not present.

Flanagan and Moore have been sentenced to death three times by different juries in Las Vegas for killing Flanagan's grandparents, Carl Gordon, then 58, and his 57-year-old wife, Colleen, in their elegant cathedral-like desert house at 5851 Washburn Ave. on Nov. 6, 1984. Both killers were 18 at the time and did not have criminal backgrounds.

Flanagan lived in a trailer behind the house. Police investigators determined that he and his best friend, Moore, plotted with others to kill the Gordons so Flanagan could get a large inheritance. Flanagan never received any of that money.

Flanagan and Moore were convicted in October 1995, but since then the case has bounced around the Nevada Supreme Court four times and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992. The high courts ruled that evidence about the defendants' beliefs in Satanism and witchcraft should not have been presented to the jury.

When police first revealed the bizarre ritualistic practices of the young men accused in the grisly Election Day double-slaying, it became front-page news and spawned community concern about Satanism and the occult in Southern Nevada.

The Nevada Supreme Court, however, in 1993, ruled that devil worship is a constitutionally protected religion and that evidence that the defendants practiced Satanism should not have been introduced at the penalty hearings.

In March 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the jurors were improperly told that the defendants worshipped the devil -- a decision that gave Flanagan and Moore a reprieve from death row.

The first conviction was set aside in May 1988 because of prosecution misconduct. At the second penalty hearing in July 1989, Flanagan and Moore proclaimed they were born-again Christians, but the jury said they still should die for their actions. The same thing happened at the third penalty hearing.

The request for a fourth hearing is based on motions filed with the state Supreme Court three years ago, in which defense attorneys claim there was a failure to present adequate jury instructions at their clients' third penalty hearing. They want a new penalty hearing or the sentences reduced to life in prison.

Johnny Luckett and Roy McDowell also were convicted of killing Flanagan's grandparents. Two others, Michael Walsh and Thomas Akers, pleaded guilty before trial. Luckett, McDowell and Walsh got life terms. Akers received probation.