HUNTINGTON BEACH : Man Found Guilty of 2nd-Degree Murder
A Huntington Beach man is guilty of second-degree murder for beating a neighbor to death with a baseball bat, an Orange County Superior Court jury concluded Monday.
It was the second time a jury had convicted John Mark Hennah, 32, of second-degree murder in the July, 1989, death of Leo Koppy, 50, of Huntington Beach.
Another Superior Court jury convicted Hennah in 1990, but a federal appeals court reversed the conviction, ruling that the judge in that trial should have instructed jurors that an involuntary manslaughter verdict was a possibility.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul E. Odwald said Hennah and his girlfriend, Susan Petra, and Koppy had lived at the same apartment complex. After Petra and Hennah broke up, she moved in with Koppy for a short period, Odwald said.
When Petra and Hennah reunited, she apparently told him that Koppy had sexually assaulted her, Odwald said.
Enraged, Hennah went to Koppy’s apartment and beat the man to death with a baseball bat, prosecutors said.
Hennah is scheduled to return to court July 25 for sentencing. He faces 15 years to life in state prison.
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