Death Penalty Sought for Anaheim Woman

SANTA ANA —  In a rare move, the Orange County district attorney’s office said Wednesday that it will seek the death penalty for a 20-year-old Anaheim woman accused of murdering a Lemon Heights man and his mother last May.

Tynickia Sherikia Thompson is the fourth Orange County woman since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1977 to face death. Of those cases, only Maria Alfaro, who fatally stabbed a 9-year-old girl, now sits on death row.

Thompson, a graduate of Western High School in Anaheim, is charged with shooting and strangling John Tyler Hancock, 49, and his mother, Helen Bauerle Hancock, 77. She also is accused of then setting fire to the 4,200-square-foot home they rented in Lemon Heights.

Prosecutors would not comment on their reasons for seeking the death penalty, but Thompson’s defense attorney said he was saddened by the announcement in Superior Court.

“If you compare people on death row and their crimes and then you look at my client, there’s a moral abyss there the size of the Grand Canyon,” said Michael P. Giannini, assistant public defender. “We are stunned and disappointed that a 20-year-old, who has never been arrested before, would be facing the death penalty.”

Initially, police suspected that Tyler Hancock’s slaying might have been tied to his criminal history: He was convicted of assault, price fixing and swindling lenders. At the time of his death, Hancock was being investigated on suspicion of credit card fraud.

But prosecutors allege that Thompson, who was Hancock’s girlfriend at the time, killed him in an argument over money. She also is charged with robbery and burglary in connection with the slaying.

At her preliminary hearing, prosecutors said she and another inmate had conspired to force a confession from a woman who was Hancock’s previous girlfriend.

Authorities said that the relatively few women on death row has more to do with the small pool of offenders than any societal qualms about executing women.

As of July 31, 1996, fewer than 2% of the nation’s death sentences had been handed to women, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; California’s share amounts to 0.2%. In those cases, the juries had to find “special circumstances,” such as murder in the course of a robbery, to impose the death penalty, authorities say.

Statewide, women make up 4.1% of all convicts serving time for first-degree murder and 4.9% of those incarcerated for second-degree murder, according to state authorities.

“If you look at the statewide statistics, we’re not out of whack,” Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley said. “Sadly, men are much more violent than women, and there are many, many more men involved in murders than women.”

Thompson’s arraignment is scheduled for May 6.