Murder Trial Begins 8 Years After Arrest

Shortly after 4 a.m. on Aug. 29, 1982, a young man named Virgil Byars telephoned police from a South Los Angeles telephone booth.

“I would like to turn myself in,” Byars told the voice that answered. “For murder.”

Nearly eight years have passed since that four-minute call, and Byars remains in County Jail without bail, his case unresolved.

Charged with two fatal drive-by gang shootings to which he allegedly confessed, Byars has fired five out of six attorneys appointed to represent him, waged a lengthy battle to keep his confession from being admitted as evidence and sat through a first trial that ended with a hung jury last year--all factors in the record-setting delay.

His case, which is believed to be the oldest active criminal court case in Los Angeles County, finally went to trial Friday for the second time.

A mistrial was declared in his first trial after a jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction.

Over the years, Byars has fired five attorneys for “dilly-dallying.” He allegedly threatened them and, even today, those who have represented him decline to comment on the severed relationships.

His current attorney, Joel Isaacson, diplomatically described his client, now 27, as “somewhat demanding,” but said that they get along and that he does not anticipate further delays.

The trial, which is being heard by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor, is expected to last four to six weeks.

“He’s never been found guilty” of the murders, an outraged Isaacson said outside the courtroom. “Yet, he’s served (the equivalent of) a life sentence already, much of it in an individual cell.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Loren Naiman began his opening statement Friday by playing a tape recording of Byars’ initial call to the police from a telephone booth just around the corner from his home.

With an agitated tone, the voice on the tape says he doesn’t know who he killed, but wants to turn himself in “because God told me to. . . . I need help.”

Naiman said the prosecution’s evidence will show that Byars, driving a stolen red Buick Skylark, killed two rival gang members--identified as Cornelius Harris and Jody Hayes--and wounded three others in separate incidents only minutes apart.

Police did not suspect Byars until he telephoned, three months after the shootings.

A subsequent six-hour confession was taped. Byars later sought to have the confession suppressed on grounds that he was under the influence of PCP, a mind-altering drug, at the time. In pretrial maneuverings, portions of the taped confession were ruled to have been obtained improperly, but the remainder will be presented to the jury.

Reminding the jury that there are two sides to every story, Isaacson, in his opening statement, said that the ranting confession should be heard as “a very unsettling, very moving portrayal of a young man having emotional problems, abusing PCP.”

He said that on the tape Byars six times denies having committed the shootings.

BACKGROUND: The Byars case took six years just to reach the trial stage. In contrast, the McMartin Pre-School molestation case, although the longest criminal proceeding in history, actually began preliminary hearings within months of the defendants’ arrests, and then proceeded promptly to the pretrial and trial stage.