Jury Told Slain Sergeant Abused Troiani

A longtime friend of Laura Troiani testified Thursday that several years before Troiani’s Marine sergeant husband was killed, she saw him yell at Laura and hit her son, lending support to the defense’s argument that Carlo Troiani was mean and uncaring and drove his wife into a deep depression.

The defense witness, Kathy Hernandez, also said Laura’s son, Christopher, once ran to Carlo crying “Daddy, daddy,” and Carlo rebuked him, saying, “I’m not your daddy.” Carlo had initially agreed to treat Christopher as his own child, even though he had been fathered by another man, Hernandez said.

But the defense’s contention that Laura Troiani was taking medication to control her depression--a depression so deep that she could not have plotted her husband’s murder, defense attorneys have tried to establish--was dealt a setback when a neurologist who treated Troiani testified that he prescribed medication for her migraine headaches, not for depression.

The testimony came as the trial of Laura Troiani, who is accused of setting up her husband so co-conspirators could gun him down, nears its end. The jury is expected to begin deliberations sometime next week.

Hernandez, who met Troiani, now 26, when they were both taking a parenting class while attending the same high school in Washington state, testified that Troiani tried at first to overlook her husband’s faults--particularly his drinking problem and his treatment of Christopher.

Seemed Depressed

When Laura Troiani went to Washington for a visit in 1984, just a few months before Carlo was killed, Hernandez said she was struck by how depressed she seemed. Troiani had apparently been worn down by Carlo’s unrelenting abuse and her inability to please him, Hernandez said.

“He had very high standards,” said Hernandez, who lived with Carlo and Laura for four months in 1979. “Dinner had to be hot on the table as soon as he came through the door. If it wasn’t he would get upset. The house had to be spotless--no kids’ toys on the floor. He’d get very upset if everything was not just perfect.”

Carlo would “call (Laura) names, threaten her whenever he got angry,” Hernandez said.

On more than one occasion, Carlo scorned his wife’s son, Hernandez said. After one particularly abusive incident, she said, “(Laura) was very hurt. She started crying and she tried to comfort Christopher, because he was upset.”

Defense attorneys Geraldine Russell and Thomas Bowden have tried to convince the jury that Laura Troiani could not control what was happening in her life in the months leading up to the Aug. 9, 1984, slaying of her husband.

Russell and Bowden say that Troiani’s co-defendants--five Marines who will be tried after Troiani--conspired to kill Carlo Troiani, a Marine staff sergeant, and that Laura was not the ringleader of the group.

Much recent testimony in the trial of Troiani has centered on her state of mind before her husband’s killing. Troiani’s attorneys have portrayed Carlo Troiani as an overbearing and obnoxious husband who cowed his wife into submission. They say that she was trying to control her depression over her marriage with medication.

Chronic Headaches

On Thursday, a prosecution witness contradicted that argument by saying that Laura Troiani had not gotten a prescription to combat her depression, but instead had been getting treatment for chronic headaches.

Dr. Theodore A. Ruel, who was the staff neurologist at Camp Pendleton in 1984, said his notes indicate that Laura Troiani did not suffer from depression in May, 1984, when he prescribed Elevil, a headache medicine that is also used to treat depression.

“The fact that I indicated that her neurological examination was normal indicates that she was not going through a significant depression,” Ruel said.

If Troiani had seemed to be suffering from severe depression, he would have referred her to a psychiatrist, Ruel said.

Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares indicated that the case will not go to the jury until the middle of next week. If Troiani is convicted of first-degree murder, she will go through another trial to determine if she should be given the death penalty.

The district attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty for Troiani and five co-defendants, claiming that all six conspired to kill Troiani for profit. Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst contends that Laura Troiani expected to collect life insurance after she helped murder her husband on a remote road near Camp Pendleton.