Landlord Is Sentenced to Die for Killing 2 Tenants

A Sun Valley landlord who shot and killed two tenants over a rental dispute was sentenced Friday to die in the gas chamber.

Earl Preston Jones, 50, showed no emotion as Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian read the death sentence.

The victims, Patricia Khan, 31, and Charles Rambert, 28, were asleep in the early morning of June 5, 1982, when Jones entered the Sun Valley house and shot them at point-blank range with a 12-gauge shotgun, Los Angeles police said.

Convicted in 1983

Neighbors said the dispute developed when Jones reneged on an agreement to lower the rent in exchange for carpentry work Rambert had done on the house.

A jury in 1983 convicted Jones of two counts of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty. The jury later ruled that Jones was legally sane at the time of the murder.

Kolostian also could have sentenced Jones, an Inglewood resident, to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Jones was originally scheduled to be sentenced by Kolostian last November. A hearing then was interrupted, however, when Jones shouted that the judge was racist and demanded that deputy marshals arrest Kolostian, the prosecutor and defense attorneys.

Jones, who was an unsuccessful candidate for the Long Beach City Council in 1980, said at the November hearing that Khan and Rambert were drug abusers and that he went to the rental property to try to help them.

‘I Love People’

Shackled at the ankles and dressed in prison blues, Jones told the court, “I love people. I know what it’s like to suffer. I had no ill feeling or hate towards these people. They were trying to make it. It’s the most unfortunate thing in the world that these people had to die.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond called the evidence against Jones overwhelming. “He killed these two people, and he did it with premeditation,” Diamond said. “This is a crime of unusual cruelty. He had only one purpose in mind when he drove to Sun Valley with a shotgun.”

After the slaying, police said, Jones pawned the weapon and bought a one-way bus ticket to Oakland. Detectives arrested Jones on the bus as it was about to leave.

At Friday’s sentencing, Jones’ brother, Sherman Jones, pleaded with Kolostian to grant a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

“He’s my baby brother,” Sherman Jones said. “I’m sure he’ll rebound. I know what he is capable of doing.”

A campaign flyer used for the Long Beach City Council race included Jones’ promise to hire additional police officers and to establish a community watch program to combat crime. Jones finished in last place among four candidates in the election, drawing 4% of the vote.

Jones joins 173 men on Death Row in San Quentin. The last execution in California took place in 1967.