Man Found Guilty of 1989 Murder of an Associate

SANTA ANA â€”  A jury took less than four hours to find a Victorville man guilty Thursday of first-degree murder for the 1989 ambush shooting of a business associate.

Edwin Winslow Bennett, 30, faces a term of 25 years to life in prison, plus five years for the use of a firearm, when he is sentenced March 27.

James E. Busher, 48, an engineer and convicted racketeer, was shot five times at the St. Andrew Trailer Park in Santa Ana. During the trial, Bennett testified that he siphoned $5,000 from Busher’s bank account shortly before the killing.

Bennett’s former girlfriend, Flora G. Larson, 39, pleaded guilty in 1990 to being an accessory after the fact in the killing, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko.

Larson, who was a business partner with Busher in a Hesperia self-service laundry, testified during Bennett’s trial that she was driving the car with the defendant when the fatal shooting took place in the early morning hours of April 19, 1989. She served one year in jail and was sentenced to three years’ probation for her role, Molko said.

Bennett testified that Larson committed the murder, and two defense witnesses testified that Bennett was with them the night of the killing.

The murder weapon, a semiautomatic rifle, was discovered by police in Bennett’s Victorville motel room about 10 days after he moved out of the house he was sharing with Larson in Hesperia.

Busher had served four years in federal prison for embezzling more than $300,000 from the military, according to federal officials. He had been out of prison about six months at the time of his death.

Jury foreman Brian Seleno, 40, of Huntington Beach, said the most compelling evidence against Bennett was the rifle found in his motel room and testimony that he had planned to take over Busher and Larson’s company, which Bennett managed. Seleno said jurors did not find Bennett’s testimony, or that of his two alibi witnesses, credible.