Wife Still Suspect in Husband’s Death After Losing Suit on Arrest

A police investigation of Mary Kellel-Sophiea as a suspect in the stabbing death of her husband continued Wednesday, a day after two detectives were cleared of wrongdoing in her lawsuit charging they had falsely arrested and conspired to frame her.

A federal court jury deliberated only 35 minutes before returning a verdict in favor of Los Angeles Detectives Woodrow Parks and Gary Milligan.

Kellel-Sophiea, 40, had sued the officers, saying they had bungled the investigation of the Jan. 31, 1990, stabbing of Gregory Sophiea in the couple’s Shadow Hills home. The lawsuit contended that the detectives wrongly focused on her as a suspect when it was clear that a burglar had killed her husband.

Kellel-Sophiea was arrested the morning of the killing, but murder charges were dropped two months later when prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence. An 18-year-old transient, who police contend conspired with her to kill her husband, later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Parks, who continues to handle the investigation, said Kellel-Sophiea remains a suspect. He said studies of scientific evidence, including DNA analysis, are ongoing. He declined to discuss that evidence.

“This isn’t a holy mission, but it is an open case,” Parks said. “I don’t have any personal vendetta. She ought to be brought to justice because there are a lot of things here that show she did have something to do with her husband’s killing.”

Milligan, who now works as a narcotics investigator, could not be reached for comment.

During the three-week trial in U.S. District Court, attorneys for Kellel-Sophiea sought to show that she was innocent and that the man later convicted of the slaying had acted alone.

At the time of the killing, Kellel-Sophiea and her husband were separating and slept in different bedrooms in their Orcas Street house. She testified that at 3 a.m. on Jan. 31, 1990, she heard and saw her husband struggling for breath, and thinking that he was having an asthma attack dialed 911 and ran to a neighbor’s house for help. Rescuers found that Sophiea had been stabbed to death, and police discovered that a bathroom window was open and the screen removed.

Parks and Milligan testified that the evidence indicated that the burglary had been “staged” to throw off the investigation. They said contradictions in Kellel-Sophiea’s statements along with other evidence--including blood found on the floor of her bedroom--focused their attention on her as a suspect.

Two weeks after Kellel-Sophiea was arrested, the detectives traced bloody fingerprints found on a fence at the house to Tony Moore, an 18-year-old Sun Valley transient. Moore was arrested, and during nine hours of interrogation he gave several versions of what happened, implicating himself and at times saying Kellel-Sophiea took part in the killing.

Though Moore’s statements about Kellel-Sophiea were never corroborated, the investigators continue to believe that the burglary was staged and that she was involved.

Before jury deliberations began, Judge James M. Ideman dismissed the lawsuit’s allegation that the investigators were conspiring to frame Kellel-Sophiea, ruling that there was no evidence of such behavior.

Deputy City Atty. Honey A. Lewis, who defended the detectives, said the jurors were left to decide whether the investigators acted in good faith when they arrested Kellel-Sophiea. Whether she was guilty or innocent in the slaying was not at issue, Lewis said.

“That’s an unsolved mystery,” she said. “That wasn’t under consideration. The issue was whether the detectives had probable or reasonable cause to arrest her. The jury determined there was good reason for the detectives to make the arrest.”

One of Kellel-Sophiea’s attorneys, Ken Clark, said her case was hurt when Ideman ruled that jurors could not hear a tape-recording of the Moore interrogation that he said showed the detectives manipulated the suspect into implicating her in the slaying.

Clark said the verdict will probably be appealed.