Soviet Claims Police Scared Him Into Confessing to Killing

A Soviet army deserter on trial for murder testified Tuesday that he told police he killed Estonian activist Viivi Piirisild because he was afraid he would be beaten as he was by the KGB in his native country.

Tauno Waidla, 23, said he told Los Angeles police detectives what he thought they wanted to hear during interviews a month after Piirisild, 52, was discovered beaten and stabbed to death in her North Hollywood home in July, 1988.

Waidla, who was hailed as a hero when he defected from the Soviet army in 1986, is accused of helping to kill Piirisild because she threw him out of her house and refused to support him any longer. Waidla lived in the Piirisild house doing odd jobs in exchange for room and board for nearly a year before the killing.

He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Waidla, arrested after Piirisild’s death on charges of illegally crossing the U.S.-Canadian border, said he repeated the police version of Piirisild’s death because he thought he would be beaten if he refused.

He testified in San Fernando Superior Court that he was interrogated at least three times by the Soviet secret police in his native Estonia for his involvement in anti-Soviet demonstrations.

He said that the interrogations lasted several days and he was “beaten up several times and my arm was broken.”

He said he did not understand completely what was happening during interviews with Los Angeles police.

“They said I’m in trouble and they’re going to hang me,” he said. “When the KGB says something like that, it flashed in my mind that it was going to happen. . . I thought they were really going to hang me.”

Despite the taped admission, Waidla has denied any part in the death, saying he was traveling across the United States when Piirisild was killed.

Waidla and Peter Sakarias, 23, were received with open arms by the Estonian communities in Los Angeles and New York after their arrival in the United States. But the men outstayed their welcome, living off the generosity of their countrymen and becoming combative when support was cut off, according to members of the Estonian community.

Sakarias, against whom murder charges are pending, was judged mentally incompetent to stand trial in Piirisild’s death and was sent to Atascadero State Hospital.