SYLMAR — Two teenagers accused in the slaying of a 12-year-old who lived in their Calabasas group home--a crime that inspired countywide reforms in the supervision of delinquents--will be tried as adults.
Brandon Sewell and Gregory Smith, 16 and 17 at the time of the crime, were found unfit for trial as juveniles on Friday by Juvenile Court Judge Morton Rochman.
Both confessed to beating Rodney Haynes to death on Aug. 26, investigators said.
Lawyers representing Sewell and Smith argued unsuccessfully that the pair should be tried in Juvenile Court because the crime was not premeditated murder but manslaughter. Smith, now 18, was taken to the men's jail after the proceeding.
At the hearing, one investigator suggested the killing may have been planned, rather than a reaction to the younger boy mouthing off, as one of the defendants claimed.
"I do have an opinion with respect to pre-planning in this case," Los Angeles Sheriff's Sgt. John Greenwood told Sewell's lawyer from the witness stand. The defense attorney did not ask for elaboration, and Greenwood later declined to elaborate.
Greenwood testified that a day before Rodney was beaten to death, Rodney and Sewell got into a shoving and shouting match over gang affiliations at the Passageways group home where Rodney had been placed only a few days earlier.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Shannon Presby said the argument provides "circumstantial evidence of the possibility of premeditation."
The night he died, Rodney snuck out of the home with the two defendants to steal beer and cigarettes from the Kwikmart convenience store on Agoura Road near Las Virgenes Road, about a mile from the group home, the defendants told investigators. As they stood outside the back door to the store, plotting the theft, Rodney began mouthing off, Sewel told Greenwood. In response, they beat him to death, Sewel said.
Greenwood said Smith, who weighs about 200 pounds, grabbed the 85-pound-Rodney in a chokehold as Sewell punched him about a dozen times to the face. When Smith finally loosened his grip, Rodney fell to the ground, where the defendants allegedly kicked Rodney as he gurgled blood.
Smith and Sewell then allegedly dragged Rodney about 20 feet to a dumpster, where they kicked and beat him with a stick, Greenwood said.. In the final blows, Sewell smashed Rodney's head with the pointed end of an ax-head-shaped rock seven times, Greenwood said.
