Mass Murders Los Angeles

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentences of three convicted killers, including the triggerman in the mistaken-identity murders of the mother and three other relatives of former football star Kermit Alexander. In a 6-1 decision, the justices turned down an appeal by Tiequon Aundray Cox, 25, found guilty with two other men in the execution-style killings of Ebora Alexander, her daughter Dietra, and her grandsons Damani Garner and Damon Bonner in Los Angeles in August, 1984.

It started off innocently enough. Martha Navarette, 17, a bubbly Hollywood girl who worked hard on her basketball dribble and dreamed of going to college, borrowed an older cousin's car to buy ice cream on Sunset Boulevard. An obedient teen-ager, she promised to return promptly.

Four people were killed and four others were injured in gang-related shootings in the Los Angeles area Wednesday night, authorities said. Four teen-agers stopped their car in Hollywood to use a pay phone, a random act that cost three of them their lives and left another critically wounded, police said Thursday. At midafternoon Thursday, a 16-year-old youth was arrested on suspicion of murder in the Hollywood slayings. "This was an assassination," said Los Angeles Police Lt.

Selection of jurors for the trial of Raymond Navarro on multiple murder charges was about to begin in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday when the 27-year-old defendant surprised the prosecution by pleading guilty to all counts.

Former Manson family follower Patricia Krenwinkel lost her ninth bid for parole Monday for her conviction in the Tate-La Bianca murders that shocked the nation more than 20 years ago. "The crime can only be described as despicable," said Rudolph Castro, commissioner of the three-member Board of Prison Terms. Krenwinkel, 43, convicted in seven of the 1969 Manson cult slayings in Los Angeles, is serving a life term at the California Institution for Women in this Riverside County community.

An all-consuming jealousy led a Hollywood man to kill his wife and three children, before shooting himself, relatives of the victims theorized Monday. Police said Rodolfo Meinguer, a 40-year-old butcher, apparently killed his three children, Rodolfo, Jr., 8, Rosalyn, 6, and Joe, 3, and common-law wife, Maria Ortiz, 28, sometime Friday night. However, police did not discover the murders until Sunday afternoon.

A Hollywood man, reportedly distraught over domestic problems, stabbed his common-law wife to death, then shot and killed his three young children before turning the gun on himself, police said Sunday. Officers went to an apartment in the 1700 block of North Normandie Avenue at 1:30 p.m. Sunday to check on Rodolfo Meinguer, Maria Ortiz and their three children after Ortiz's sister had been unable to contact the family for two days, Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Kuster said.

The neighbors were never quite sure what to make of the comings and goings at the little one-bedroom garage apartment on South Burnside Avenue in the Mid-Wilshire District. The place had been occupied for decades by Robert Marks, a 59-year-old retiree who lately seemed to entertain a succession of young men.

Four men were found shot to death in a Mid-Wilshire apartment Tuesday evening in a killing police described as an "organized operation." Two of the bodies were discovered at 6:30 p.m. when a friend of one of the victims went to the triplex in the 1200 block of South Burnside Avenue to watch the fourth game of the National Basketball Assn. championship series, investigators said. The friend notified neighbors who called authorities, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Willie Pannell.

Charles Manson "Family" follower Patricia Krenwinkel was refused parole for the eighth time in as many years for her conviction in the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. Krenwinkel, 42, failed to persuade the three-member Board of Prison Terms that she no longer poses a threat to society. The panel cited the brutality and heinousness of the crimes but added that Krenwinkel may seek parole in another year.