Transient faces death penalty in theft, slaying

Erica D. Johnson

Tuesday, March 18, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

Jurors on Monday learned that a transient facing the death penalty for robbing and killing a Las Vegas man is also a convicted rapist.

After deliberating for 25 minutes, jurors found 33-year-old Steven Kaczmarek guilty of killing Pedro "Pete" Villareal, a 58-year-old kitchen worker. The jury must now decide Kaczmarek's punishment for commmitting murder with the assistance of a child, robbery with the assistance of a child and first-degree kidnapping with the assistance of a child.

Kaczmarek's co-defendant, his 16-year-old girlfriend, Alicia Burns, is being tried separately. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for April.

To reinforce the fact that Villareal was not the first victim of Kaczmarek's years of crime, prosecutors had Katie Feifer describe how Kaczmarek broke into her Oak Park, Ill., home and raped her in September 1988.

Feifer told the jurors that Kaczmarek had knocked on her door and told her he worked for a painting company that had painted her house weeks before. Kaczmarek claimed he'd left a sweater in her home, she said.

Feifer went inside to call the company, but Kaczmarek forced his way inside and attacked her with a hunting knife, she testified.

"He grabbed me by my hair," she said. "I screamed and I dropped the phone. He said, 'If you scream again I'll kill you.' "

After the assault, Kaczmarek gagged Feifer with a pillowcase and tied her legs and hands with a 50-foot extension cord, she said.

"I remember thinking, 'Oh God, this is it. He's going to kill me,' " she said. "I was horrified. I didn't know what was coming next."

While Feifer was bound and gagged in the basement, Kaczmarek stole electronics, credit cards and Feifer's car. He confessed his crime to police upon his arrest, sent to prison and paroled in 1995.

The murder for which Kaczmarek was convicted Monday in Las Vegas also involved binding and gagging of the victim.

Jurors can choose one of the following sentences for Kaczmarek: death; 40 to 100 years in prison; life in prison with parole possible after 40 years or life in prison without the possibility of parole, Deputy District Attorney Mary Brown said.

Kaczmarek robbed and killed Villareal in Villareal's room at the Uptown Motel in downtown Las Vegas with Burns' help.

Villareal invited the couple to the room expecting to pay Burns for sex, prosecutors said. Villareal's body was found in a bathtub with his hands and feet bound with electrical cords.

Defense attorneys argued that while Kaczmarek was guilty of robbery, he was no murderer.

Kaczmarek told jurors that while Villareal died at his hands, he never intended to kill him. He said Burns began attacking the man first and he jumped in to help.

During her opening statement in the penalty phase, Brown laid out for jurors Kaczmarek's history of violent crime, which began in 1988 with Feifer's rape.

Kaczmarek pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault, home invasion and robbery with use of a deadly weapon in that case.

Seven months later Kaczmarek was convicted in another residential burglary in which he stole $19,000, seven firearms, two VCRs, a safe and jewelry, Brown said.

After pleading guilty in that case, he was sent to prison a second time and was paroled in December 2001. A year later he killed Villareal.

Brown told jurors there was only one proper punishment for such a brutal murder.

"Mr. Villareal died a horrible, horrible death at the hands of Steven Kaczmarek," she said. "We're asking you to return with a punishment of death."

The penalty phase of Kaczmarek's trial was expected to continue today before District Judge John McGroarty.