Trial in 3 Southside Slayer Cases Begins

The murder trial of a prime suspect in three of the much-publicized Southside Slayer killings began Wednesday with the prosecution telling the jury that the defendant, Louis Craine, had confessed to the murders last year in lengthy interrogations by detectives.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Watson, said in an opening statement that the confessions made by Craine, a 31-year-old construction worker, were recorded and that those tapes will be played during the trial before Compton Superior Court Judge Janice Claire Croft.

“You’re going to hear the case the way the police learned about it,� Watson told the jury.

Defense attorneys, who did not present an opening statement, contended outside of court that Craine was pressured by detectives into confessing to crimes that he did not commit.

Craine is charged with the strangulation murders of five black prostitutes between November, 1984, and May, 1987. He also faces five counts of sex crimes that allegedly occurred during the murders.

Because of the special circumstance of multiple murders, Watson said he will ask for the death penalty should Craine be convicted of first-degree murder in any of the homicides.

Watson said Craine had been linked earlier this year to three of the 18 Southside Slayer murders after he admitted to police that he knew certain information about two of the victims, whose bodies had been dumped in an alley near his parents’ home in the 9700 block of South Grandee Avenue.

Detectives believed Craine’s statements because Southside Slayer Task Force detectives were the only ones who knew of the information, Watson said. He did not describe the nature of the information in court.

One of the two women, Sheila Rae Burris, 30, was found stabbed and strangled Nov. 18, 1984. The other, Gail M. Ficklin, was found dead on Aug. 15, 1985, and was the 11th victim on the task force’s list of unsolved Southside Slayer murders.

Craine also is charged with the death of Victim No. 18, Carolyn Barney, whose body was found in a vacant lot across the street from the Craine family home in May of last year.

Besides the three Southside murders, he is accused in the deaths of Loretta Perry, whose body was found Jan. 25, 1987, in the 9500 block of South Defiance Avenue, and Vivian Collins, who was slain March 18, 1987, in the 1600 block of East Century Boulevard.

Two other men have been arrested in three other Southside Slayer killings. Daniel Lee Siebert, a convicted killer imprisoned in Alabama, was charged last year with two of the killings. The second man, Charles Mosley, was convicted of the 1986 death of a third victim.

Craine’s defense attorneys, Morris Jones and Ronald Skyers, said during a court recess that they do not dispute the fact that Craine confessed to the homicides.

“The tapes speak for themselves,� Jones said. “But he (Craine) only has a fourth-grade education. And he faced extreme pressure from numerous detectives. You put a person under that kind of pressure and it’s highly likely that he would make an inflammatory statement.�

The trial is expected to go to the jury in early August.