Family of Encino Man Denies Altering Story on 1989 Beating Death

The prosecution in the trial of an Encino man, charged with beating his uncle to death with a baseball bat, suggested Monday that some family members have changed their accounts of the beating in order to help his defense. The suggestion drew an angry denial from the accused’s father.

“The suggestion is offensive and absolutely false,” said Ronald Hartman, whose brother was the slaying victim.

The elder Hartman testified during the second day of the Van Nuys Superior Court trial of his son, Douglas Hartman, 23, who is charged with murdering Arthur Hartman, 57, a Calabasas dentist, on July 28, 1989.

According to trial testimony, the slaying occurred on a day Douglas Hartman’s family attempted to place him in a psychiatric hospital for treatment of manic depression. A psychiatrist who had treated him for the illness for five years testified that Hartman had stopped taking dosages of anti-psychotic medication in the weeks before the slaying.

Douglas Hartman has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity but has also claimed as part of his defense that the death was accidental and provoked by the victim.

Judge Darlene Schempp, who is hearing the case without a jury, must determine if he was guilty of criminal homicide before deciding the insanity issue in a second phase of the trial.

Prosecution witnesses, including the dead man’s wife, Hartman’s aunt, have testified that Hartman attacked his mother, sister, uncle and aunt with a baseball bat when he returned to his parents’ home several hours after running away from guards who were hired to take him to the hospital.

The aunt, Shirley Hartman, said that the attack--after which she required 42 stitches to close a head wound--was unprovoked and that she watched in horror as Douglas Hartman struck her husband repeatedly with a bat, even after he was down.

But in two days of testimony for the defense, the suspect’s parents said the uncle confronted their son, first outside and then inside the house, with a blackjack. His mother also said she was not attacked by her son but fell over furniture while trying to escape the fighting.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth A. Loveman, disputes the parents’ version and during cross-examination of Ronald Hartman on Monday read several statements attributed to him in police reports that conflicted with his testimony.

But Hartman denied that he ever told police that his son attacked all four members of the family in the house. He also denied telling police that his son had attacked him on a previous occasion.

The father testified that he did not ask his wife and daughter to change their version of events to help his son’s defense. Under Loveman’s questioning, Ronald Hartman also said that he is paying for his son’s defense and that he hopes his son will not be sent to prison.

“He’s been home over a year and it is my desire that that continue,” he said.