Krishna Member Faces Trial in Slaying
A Hare Krishna member serving a life prison term for killing a fellow devotee in West Virginia was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges that he murdered a dissident Krishna member in Los Angeles.
Thomas Arthur Drescher, 40, was ordered to stand trial in Superior Court on a murder count at the end of a two-day preliminary hearing before Municipal Judge Karl Jaeger.
Drescher, who is associated with the Krishna’s 2,900-acre New Vrindaban complex near Moundsville, W.V., remains in custody without bail pending arraignment Tuesday.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison.
Drescher is charged with the May, 1986, execution-style slaying of Steven Bryant, an outspoken critic of the Hindu religious sect.
Bryant, 33, was shot twice in the head at close range while sitting in his van near the Krishna temple in the Palms section of West Los Angeles.
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