Killers Wouldn’t Look at Them, Family Says

The killers wouldn’t look him in the eye.

No matter, says David Dalton. In the end, the jurors saw right through gang members who killed his 3-year-old niece when the car that the family was riding home in made a wrong turn onto a dead-end street in gang territory.

“I tried to look in their eyes, to express my anger,” an emotional Dalton said Monday after three members of a Cypress Park street gang were convicted of first-degree murder in the death of toddler Stephanie Kuhen and of attempted murder of Dalton and four others in the car.

“But they didn’t look at me,” he said at a news conference in the district attorney’s office. “They have no shame about what they did.”

Stephanie was shot in the head 20 months ago when her family, taking a post-midnight shortcut after leaving a birthday party, mistakenly turned onto Isabel Street.

Gang members who considered the street their own surrounded the car and opened fire.

Prosecutors argued during the six-week trial that the family was fired upon because it “disrespected” the gang members by driving onto their turf.

Dalton and others in the car testified that they kept their eyes straight ahead during the Sept. 17, 1995, incident.

Belatedly sensing the danger, they were careful not to stare at the crowd or make menacing gestures as their car traveled slowly back down the street before it was blocked by a trash can and shots were fired, they said.

On Monday, gang members Anthony Rodriguez, 28, Manuel Rosales Jr., 22, and Hugo David Gomez, 17, looked straight ahead as the guilty verdicts were read in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Edward A. Ferns.

From her front-row seat, Stephanie’s grandmother, Linda Dalton, also tried to catch the killers’ eyes.

“They wouldn’t look back,” she said. “I’ve been trying for six weeks to get them to look at me and they wouldn’t look back.

“I’m just thrilled we got a guilty verdict. We’re so thankful the jury saw it.”

David Dalton was the only victim of the shooting incident who was on hand for Monday’s verdicts. Robynn Kuhen, the slain toddler’s mother, has moved from the Los Angeles area and could not make it to the court in time, he said.

Several other family members--including a sometimes sobbing aunt, Fran Fanning--were in court.

David Dalton said none of them are looking forward to the possible retrial of a fourth gang member, Augustin Lizama, 17, and the pending trial of a fifth suspect, Marcos Luna, 25. Jurors were deadlocked over charges against Lizama; Ferns declared a mistrial in the case against him.

“It’s just hard to have to go through it again in court,” said Dalton, 23, a fiber-optic cable splicer.

But he acknowledged that he relives the slaying of his niece “basically every day.” Pictures of the blond toddler--some painted by strangers--hang in his family’s home, he said.

“It was complete horror, the worst nightmare,” he said of the attack. “I just remember shots as soon as we went by them. I saw the back window just disappear right before my eyes. I remember listening to the kids crying. We were hoping to get out of there. We drove home on flat tires.

“I just feel lucky to be alive. You feel a bullet go right through your hair and you feel lucky.”

Dalton, whose anguished 911 emergency call was replayed for jurors, said he is pleased the killers face up to life in prison when they return to court Aug. 1 for sentencing.

“The death penalty would be almost too easy for them. I’d rather have them live every day and wonder why they’re in jail,” he said.

“I’m real pleased with the outcome and glad they’re in jail.”