Jury to be selected for Abrams trial

Sue Doyle

COSTA MESA -- Jury selection begins Monday in the murder trial of

Steven Allen Abrams, the man prosecutors allege purposely aimed his car

at a local preschool, killing two children, injuring seven others and

stunning an entire community with the brutality of the crime.

Two children, Sierra Soto, 4, and Brandon Wiener, 3, were killed in

the May 3, 1999, incident at the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning

Center in Costa Mesa. Several other children and a teacher’s aide were

injured.

During a two-hour interview with the Costa Mesa police investigators

hours after he drove into the sandlot on Magnolia Street, Abrams told

police he wanted to “execute the children because they were innocent.”

Abrams faces two counts of murder and seven counts of attempted

murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, claiming Abrams

deliberately steered his 1967 Cadillac through a chain-link fence and

into the schoolyard where 30 children played.

Prosecutors previously filed special circumstances charges necessary

for the death penalty, alleging that the crime was premeditated.

Jury selection usually takes more than a week. Authorities expect the

trial to begin the week of July 24 at the Central Justice Center in Santa

Ana. Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel will preside.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debbie Lloyd, did not return phone

calls to comment on the upcoming trial.

The children’s deaths shocked the community, which rallied together to

make sense of the crime. But that bond later started to crumble later as

the parents of both Sierra Soto and Brandon Wiener filed lawsuits against

the operators of the preschool.

Abrams, 39 at the time of the killing, was reportedly longing after a

former neighbor when the tragedy occurred. Authorities wondered if the

scorned suspect took his frustration out on the children.

Court documents showed that Abrams stalked the woman between September

1993 and May 1994. They both lived in an 18th Street apartment complex,

just a few blocks away from the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning

Center.

The woman said Abrams made harassing phone calls to her several times

a week in early 1994. She claimed Abrams threatened to shoot and kill her

husband and brother, according to court records.

Abrams was sentenced to three years’ probation for the misdemeanor

counts.