Man Accused of Beating His Father to Death Awaits Verdict

A jury Thursday began deliberating a verdict in the trial of a Sherman Oaks man charged with beating his 71-year-old father to death with body-building weights.

Deliberations began after Ross Harvey De Spenza, 42, who is acting as his own attorney, told the Van Nuys Superior Court jury during his closing argument that he killed his father in self-defense when the older man came at him with a knife.

De Spenza also made political and religious statements, including that he was the son of God. A prosecutor called the statements a ploy to fool the jury into thinking De Spenza is deranged.

De Spenza is charged with murder for killing his father, also named Ross De Spenza, on April 14, 1990. The victim had gone to his son’s house to take him on a family vacation. A former airline pilot and real estate investor who lived in West Hills, the victim owned the Sherman Oaks house where his son lived. He was killed a week after eliminating his son as a beneficiary from a family trust fund.

De Spenza said during his closing argument that he did not know of the trust-fund change.

De Spenza said his father--who he said had previously tried to poison him--was ill, suicidal and “engulfed by problems” when the older man attacked him with a knife. He said he struck his father with five-pound metal weights as they struggled on the floor.

“I did not want to take the life of my father,” De Spenza said. “Madness overwhelmed my father. He wanted to end his life. . . . I know that I acted in self-defense.”

De Spenza addressed the jury in a monotone and rarely looked up as he spoke. He constantly turned pages in a thick stack of notes. And while denying the allegations against him, he added, “I cannot deny that I am the son of God.”

In her closing argument, Deputy Dist. Atty. Terese Hutchison told the jurors that De Spenza’s odd religious and political statements were an attempt to influence the jury’s decision by causing jurors to question his sanity, which is not at issue in the trial.

“It’s a smoke screen,” Hutchison said. “What matters in this case is what happened April 14, 1990.”

Hutchison said De Spenza had threatened his father in the past. She said the evidence showed that he sat on his father and repeatedly struck him in the head with the weights. She said De Spenza changed his bloody clothes and washed off the weights before calling 911 for an ambulance for his father.

“He is a cold-blooded, calculated killer,” Hutchison said. “Everything that happened April 14 was planned.”

She asked the jurors to convict De Spenza of second-degree murder.

Jury deliberations are expected to continue today.