D.A. Won’t Seek Death Penalty in Slaying of 4 City Workers
A former electrician for the city of Los Angeles will not face the death penalty when he is sentenced next month for killing four of his supervisors at the city’s C. Erwin Piper Technical Center in 1995, prosecutors announced Monday.
At a hearing before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edward Ferns, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sally Thomas said the district attorney’s office would not retry the penalty phase of the case against Willie Woods. In the first trial, jurors deadlocked on Woods’ punishment.
“A number of the [victims’] families would like closure,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.
Woods, 44, is expected to be sentenced Feb. 7 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Gibbons said.
In November, Woods was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Anthony J. Gain, 78; Neil Carpenter, 61, and James Walton, 60. He was also convicted of second-degree murder for killing Marty Wakefield, 57.
The jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of sentencing him to death.
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