by Robert Scott
There was always something unusual happening with this case. On December 4, it was a very big one. On the last day that witnesses were called, Darrell Rich was granted permission to marry Loretta Summers, twenty-four, of Redding. She first met Darrell during his trial, and she had accompanied Darrell’s mother to the courtroom many times. No actual date was set for the wedding.
Finally, on December 5, after starting jury selection clear back on August 12, Robert Baker began his closing arguments to the jurors. In part he told them, “Darrell Rich is a predator, who systemically hunted for victims. He was a marauder who went out and sought people. He preplanned everything and went out and hunted these women and girls.
“Darrell Rich is an egocentric, self-centered individual who never grew up. He preys on others and always gets things his own way. He has absolutely no care for other people’s feelings, and I think that has been borne out again and again at trial. The defense psychologists and psychiatrists patronized him and believed everything he told them.”
Robert Baker added, “This case has taken so long, some people’s minds might be dulled about what was brought out in court.” Nonetheless, Baker went back and brought forth testimony about the four murder victims, and the five surviving victims, too. Baker, however, saved his most impassioned speech about eleven-year-old Annette Selix.
Baker held up a photo of Selix, clad in a baseball uniform, with a smile on her face. He declared, “When I see this picture, I almost want to bawl. I have a daughter, who is one year older than that, and I look at that smile, and in my mind, that is life itself. This girl had a right to go to high school to senior proms, to have children, raise children and even have grandchildren and live a full life.”
For the defense team’s closing, Werner Ahrbeck asked the jurors to keep the emotional element out of deliberations. “The facts show that Darrell Rich was suffering from mental disorders at the times of the murders and other crimes.” Ahrbeck spoke of Darrell Rich’s compulsion to tell authorities what he had done, because he didn’t want to hurt anyone else. More than any other reason that Darrell was caught, Ahrbeck declared, was because of Darrell Rich himself.
Defense attorney Russell Swartz also made a closing argument. He conceded that Darrell Rich had murdered those four individuals, and even the videotapes of him talking to law enforcement officers proved that. But Swartz added that the jurors had to dismiss that in a trial like this: a case where guilt or innocence depended on state of mind at the times that the crimes were committed. Swartz said, “It’s almost asking the impossible of you, but you have to put that information [from the videotapes] out of your minds.”
Swartz spoke for four and a half hours in closing arguments on a wide range of topics. He said that Darrell Rich had always been an outsider who only wanted to be loved. And as far as the attacks on women went, Swartz claimed, “He had no need to go out and assault people for the purpose of sex. He had plenty of sexual outlets. There was some more basic primitive need. The brutality of these murders will make it hard for you to accept the intermittent explosive disorders, but that’s where the really hard work of the jury comes in.”
And in an interesting twist, Swartz actually asked for manslaughter convictions on the murders. He added that “it would not be inappropriate to find Mr. Rich [guilty] of first-degree murder in connection with the death of Ms. Slavik.” That would make it premeditated, but not necessarily a death penalty case.
If Robert Baker holding up a photo of a living Annette Selix was emotional to the jurors, DDA Frank O’Connor holding up a photo of one of the women murder victims was something else again. It depicted her almost-nude body lying on her back with her legs spread apart. O’Connor asked them rhetorically, “Is there any doubt in your minds that the defendant had sex with this woman? All of these crimes have the same motive, and the motive is sexual.”
O’Connor termed the videotapes of Darrell being hypnotized and interviewed “hocus-pocus and a medicine show.” O’Connor stated that other expert doctors said those tests and interviews had not been conducted properly.
“I’m not telling you, he is normal. I’d be glad to tell you [that] he’s as crazy as a pet coon, but that’s not the question. The question is—does he suffer from diminished capacity so he can’t form the specific intent, harbor malice and premeditate? No. All of the crimes were goal-directed activity. Darrell is doing what he wants to do. He drove the streets, prowled the streets, looking for females who were young, attractive and vulnerable.”
O’Connor asked the jurors to find Darrell Keith Rich guilty of all charges.
The jurors went out on Friday afternoon, December 12, and deliberated for three hours, before being sent home for the weekend. They had a lot to contend with. There had been 150 witnesses, 200 exhibits and 4,700 pages of transcripts.
On December 16, the jury of seven men and five women returned to court. On that day they found Darrell guilty of various charges and not guilty on others: Count 1 dealt with Annette Edwards, and the jurors found him guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances. Count 2 was for Patricia Ann “Pam” Moore, with a verdict of second-degree murder. For Linda Slavik, it was first-degree murder with special circumstances. Count 4 was for Annette Selix, with guilty of first-degree murder; the special circumstances that the murder was willful, deliberate and premeditated and committed during the commission of a lewd act upon a child under the age of fourteen. This verdict could get him the death penalty.
When Lorretta Summers, Darrell’s intended bride, heard the verdict, she proclaimed, “Oh, my God! They did it!”
Other verdicts varied as well: Count 5, concerning Brenda Simmons, guilty of assault, with great bodily injury. Count 6, guilty of attempted forcible oral copulation. Count 7, concerning Jeanne Maddox, was guilt for simple kidnapping; Count 8, not guilty of forcible rape; Count 9, guilty of rape by threat of great and immediate bodily harm. Count 10 also concerned Jeanne, and was guilt for forcible oral copulation. Count 11 covered the same subject.
Count 12 for Melanie Franklin was guilt for kidnapping. Count 13 was guilt for forcible oral copulation. Count 14 was guilt for forcible sodomy. Count 15 was guilt of assault to commit rape.
As far as Janet Olson went: Count 16 was guilt for forcible rape; Count 17, not guilty of rape by threat. For Shannon Rodriguez: Count 18, guilt for simple kidnapping; Count 19, not guilty of forcible rape; Count 20, guilty of rape by threat of great and immediate bodily harm; Count 21, guilty of forcible oral copulation; Count 22, guilty of forcible sodomy.
The guilt phase had taken the jurors ten hours of deliberation. The sanity phase of deliberation took them only ninety minutes. On December 16, they came back with a verdict that Darrell Rich was sane at the time of the murders. In fact, he was sane during every charged incident. The next phase would determine if Darrell Keith Rich would die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison.
Chapter 22
Critical Factors
At the start of the sentencing phase, the judge asked Russell Swartz if Darrell Rich wished to make a statement. Swartz said that he didn’t.
The prosecution began its final arguments through Robert Baker. He told the jurors that he appreciated their services and all their hard work on the case. Then he said he wouldn’t belabor them with going over all the facts once again. He did note that in 1977, the California Legislature had enacted the death penalty statute. Whereby, if certain special circumstances were found to be true by a jury, they could vote for a death penalty.
Baker said that special circumstances were the most serious types of murders that the legislature could think of. In the present case the jury had found four special circumstances to be true. Baker noted there were many kinds of murders where the death penalty was not appropriate. He said in this case it was one of those rare instances where the death penalty should be imposed.
The legislature had set standards that the jurors needed to find as aggravating or mitigating. The first standard h
ad to do with the circumstance of the murder. As far as Annette Edwards went, Baker said, Darrell had parked his car across the street from where he saw her and went up a hill. It was obvious to Baker that Darrell had done so to avoid detection. Baker added that Darrell knew that police were nearby at the time, and he took the step of murder to avoid being caught.
Baker added that they had all seen the amount of blood on a photo of the garbage can lid near Edwards’s body. There was a rape and Darrell left her there not knowing or caring if she bled to death. Medical attention might have saved her; but according to Robert Baker, Darrell wanted her to die so that she could not be a witness against him.
With Pam Moore, Darrell Rich had been so brazen as to kidnap her in broad daylight and then take her out to a remote area to be raped. The jury did not find that the felony murder rule applied, but Baker said there was strong evidence that a rape had occurred. He added that she was “hunched up—the beating was savage.” There were five-inch-diameter eggshell-type breaks in her skull. And with Moore, Baker once again said that Darrell left her there to die, not knowing if she was already dead or not.
“The Slavik case, I think, is one of the most horrendous things that the mind can imagine.” Baker said that Darrell purposefully took a young mother out to where he knew there was another body. It was very premeditated. Baker noted that Darrell took a rifle and ammunition; he meant to kill her from the start. The first shot went through her neck; the second shot through her open mouth, severing the spinal cord and causing almost immediate death.
Annette Edwards was buried in Lawn Crest Memorial Cemetery, not far
from where she had been murdered. (Author photo)
Even though the jury did not find that a rape had taken place, mainly because Slavik’s body had been left out in the heat so long, Baker said there was good cause to believe a rape had taken place.
Baker vehemently declared, “As bad as the Edwards, Moore and Slavik murders were, the murder of an eleven-year-old girl was the worst of all.” With Annette Selix, it was obvious to Baker that she’d been orally copulated and raped—and it was done by someone she knew and trusted. Baker said that she would have never gotten into a car of someone she didn’t know. There was evidence that the rape was so brutal that there were tears in the vagina and, of course, the infamous bite marks on her thigh. After having been raped, she had been driven more than thirty miles to a bridge. She was then summarily “thrown off, like a bag of oats,” according to Baker.
Autopsy reports showed that she had hit the rocks below so hard that she’d nearly broken one foot clear off her leg. Baker said that he had mourned the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill. However, in the case of Churchill, it had been a man who had accomplished much and had led a full life. For Annette Selix, she had been on the earth eleven years, until Darrell Rich brutally murdered her.
The second factor put forth by the California Legislature dealt with a defendant’s use of violence. Baker said that there was a clear record of this from the attacks upon all the women and girls. “There is a common factor with respect to all the victims in this case. They were weak and they were young. They are women and they obviously aren’t going to resist the power of a man that is as powerful as Darrell Keith Rich.”
The third factor was if the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. This was a key factor in the case, and Baker said that the jurors had already determined that Darrell did not have “diminished capacity” during the crimes. Instead, Baker said that Darrell was selfish, self-centered, egocentric and antisocial. He knew right from wrong, and he didn’t care that he knew what he was doing was wrong.
The fourth factor concerned whether the victims had conducted themselves to be a part of the homicidal act. Obviously, with all the victims, they had not been willing participants or somehow incited Darrell Rich to rape them or kill them.
The fifth factor was whether Darrell believed there was a “moral factor” giving him reason to kill his victims. Once again, there was no evidence of that at all.
The sixth was whether Darrell had acted under extreme duress by another individual and under their domination. In fact, Darrell had acted alone in all the crimes, in a “willful and wanton” manner, according to Baker. “He went out like a predator, hunting down weak people to attack.”
Number seven was also very important. It stated: Whether or not at the time of the offenses the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired as a result of mental disease or the effects of intoxication. Baker said there was no evidence of intoxication on Darrell’s part and that the jury had already found Darrell to be sane at the time of the offenses.
The eighth factor dealt with the age of the perpetrator and the ages of the victims. Baker said that Darrell was a “strong, hulking” twenty-three-year-old. His victims had been women and girls aged from their late twenties to eleven years old. Age was not a factor on the perpetrator’s part.
Ninth was whether the defendant was just an accomplice in the crimes and his role had been relatively minor. Obviously, Darrell had not just been an accomplice and his role had been major.
Baker said that number ten was a “kind of catchall” that took into account the defendant’s history, background, character and circumstances of the crimes. Baker claimed that there was nothing in factor ten that was mitigating in Darrell’s case.
Special Prosecutor Robert Baker declared that he was going to wrap things up by saying, “This is the Christmas season. It is a difficult thing for you to have a decision like this to make at Christmastime. But think of the families that are not going to have a happy Christmas ever because of the loss of loved ones. There is no indication that the defendant would not kill again if it served his purpose, say in prison. I don’t think a person could contemplate a series of murders such as this that is more contemptible to society or more warranting the death sentence.”
It was now Russell Swartz’s turn, and he knew he had a Herculean task to perform. And yet, he only had to convince one juror to vote for life without the possibility of parole for Darrell Rich, instead of the death penalty.
Swartz began by saying that he knew they had gone through a mountain of evidence in the previous portions of the trial, and it had been very lengthy. Now he promised to make his closing arguments fairly brief. He said an important factor was the character and history of Darrell Rich. And what he and they had to work with came from Darrell himself for the most part. “These were the things Darrell told to police and psychiatrists about what was on his mind.”
Swartz related that this portion of the trial was when both the prosecution and the defense could address emotion in their arguments. He declared the prosecution had already done so by presenting the “terribleness” of the crimes, and their effects on the living and the dead. And Swartz said that even before the trial began, one of the questions to potential jurors had been “What if evidence shows not one, but multiple murders, including the murder of an eleven-year-old girl, who was sexually abused and then thrown off a bridge? Would that alone be enough that you would not consider other evidence in imposing a death penalty?”
Swartz said that all of the jurors had sworn they could look beyond that fact and base their decisions on other factors in the case. They had made a promise under oath to do so. Swartz said he, too, could play on the emotional issues, but that was not the kind of attorney that he was. Instead, he would rely on the facts, he said.
Swartz went through the ten factors, too, but only some of them were relevant to his argument. The first of these was factor number two and dealt with Darrell’s prior history of violence. The first incident, of course, concerned Darrell firing over the head of a police officer. Darrell had done it because he was despondent and hoped the officer would kill him. Swartz said that it was not Darrell’s intent to hurt the officer, but rather the hope by Darrell that the officer woul
d retaliate by killing him.
The second incident occurred when Darrell had rammed his car into the Volkswagen in the park. And the third was when Darrell was involved in a fight with a tire iron. Darrell had actually been the one to receive more injuries in that altercation. Swartz declared that every mental-health expert in the trial, including the prosecution’s psychiatrists, said that Darrell suffered from some sort of serious mental problems. There might have been differences about the severity of the mental disorders, but all said he had them to some degree. “Those problems did have some influence on Darrell’s conduct during the summer of 1978,” according to Swartz.
Russell Swartz went through the other factors briefly, until number ten. For this, he said, the jurors had the right to factor in Darrell’s life history in making their decision. Swartz declared that no one was born to kill. It was the influences, pressures and other factors of their lives that led them to that act. With Darrell Rich, Swartz stated, the jurors understood the strife in Darrell’s home when he was growing up. His mother was domineering and spent more time with the day care children she watched than with him. In fact, it was Darrell who saved a couple of children from drowning in a canal.