LOCAL : N. Hollywood Man Convicted of Murder in Officers’ Bomb Deaths
A North Hollywood makeup man was convicted today of the murders of two police demolitions experts who were killed when a pipe bomb exploded as they were trying to dismantle it.
A Superior Court jury, after only hours of deliberation, found Donald Morse guilty of two counts each of first-degree murder and possessing explosives.
Morse, 39, was also convicted of special circumstance allegations that would have qualified him for the death penalty, but the district attorney’s office had decided not to seek a death sentence against him. Morse will be sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without parole May 3.
Detective Arleigh McCree, 46, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb squad, and squad veteran Ron Ball, 43, were killed Feb. 8, 1986, as they tried to defuse two pipe bombs found in Morse’s North Hollywood garage.
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