Jury Convicts Man of Murdering Couple

VAN NUYS — A former friend of a Chatsworth couple’s teenage son was convicted Wednesday of their murders and the attempted murder of the son during a January 1996 home-invasion robbery that a prosecutor called “everybody’s worst nightmare.”

Rickey Smith Jr., 20, probably will spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury found him guilty of multiple counts of robbery, conspiracy and murder with special circumstances in the fatal shootings. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Deliberating over three days following a two-week trial, the jury also found Smith guilty of the attempted murder of the couple’s son, 15 at the time, who was bound with duct tape and shot in the leg after letting Smith, a friend from his old neighborhood, into the house.

Once inside, according to testimony in San Fernando Superior Court, Smith was joined by his cousin, Antwan Marque Allison, then 17, who donned a ski mask and gloves.

Armed with a blued steel revolver, the two gagged and bound the couple and their son with duct tape, and attempted to tape plastic shopping bags over their heads to suffocate them. They made off with money and jewelry, as well as credit cards and personal checks.

“It’s one of the most disturbing crimes we’re seen,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman, co-prosecutor in the case.

“There’s just something about the hands, the way they were bound, that made the mother look like she was in prayer,” she added. “Then there was the testimony from her son that the bag kept getting tighter and tighter over her face as she struggled for air.”

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Richard Landau, a 43-year-old landscaper in the film industry, and his wife, Donna, a 39-year-old airline ticket agent, were sleeping but were soon roused by two young men bent on robbery, Deputy Dist. Atty. Rob Dver said.

The couple’s terror during their last moments can only be imagined.

According to testimony, the shooting began when Richard Landau broke free of his restraints as his assailants were attempting to tape the plastic bag over his head.

His body was found sprawled in a blood-soaked hallway near the master bedroom; his wife’s curled up in the bathroom. Her eyes were covered by silver tape, her hands were taped in a praying posture, and her head was sealed in a plastic bag.

He had managed to break one of his hands free and had torn the tape from his face.

Each was shot once--Richard Landau in the ear, his wife in the chest, and son Jonathan in the thigh.

Jonathan, a student at Chatsworth High School, survived by playing dead. He later climbed out a window onto the roof, where he hid until his older brother, Jason, then an 18-year-old football player at Chatsworth High, returned from driving his girlfriend home.

The jury found Smith guilty of murder with the special circumstances of committing multiple murders, and murdering during the course of a robbery and burglary.

The Jan. 2, 1996, killings were highly publicized, and struck many law enforcement officials as particularly cruel and gruesome.

Landau had last worked on the television series “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” His wife had taken a disability leave from her airline job.

The family’s home, in a remote area off Owensmouth Avenue, was a popular hangout for the teenage friends of the couple’s sons. Jonathan, whom everyone calls “Johnnie,” had met Smith a couple of years earlier when Smith was staying at a group home in the Landaus’ old neighborhood in Sylmar.

A second jury deliberating the fate of Allison was disbanded and a mistrial declared Wednesday after Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann determined that some jurors had engaged in misconduct by refusing to follow her legal instructions. One juror had consulted outside printed materials and had attempted to sway others.

According to notes passed by the jurors, the panel had reached verdicts on five of eight counts, but couldn’t agree about the murder counts.

The judge, in declaring the mistrial, scolded the jurors. “I hope you’re happy that we have--How long were we here? About three weeks?--cost about $8,000 a day running a jury trial,” Ashmann said.

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She told the jurors they had “wasted” taxpayers’ money “because some of you refuse to follow my instructions and to follow the law. I’m just so totally upset about it that words can’t express my feelings and my shock that people would do it so directly and contrary to the laws of our state and our county.”

Defense attorney Alex Kessel said he would consider advising Allison to accept a plea bargain if prosecutors decide to recommend a sentence that does not preclude the possibility of parole. Allison had confessed to police that he went to the Landau home planning to rob the couple, but denied he ever intended to kill them.

Because authorities couldn’t determine who fired the fatal shots, prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Ashmann set Smith’s sentencing for June 9. Under the law, the only sentence Smith can receive is life in state prison without the possibility of parole.