Suspect Accused of Seeking Witnesses’ Slayings

A suspect in a grisly Ventura County slaying has used information allegedly provided by his defense team to solicit the murders of key witnesses in a case that could send him to death row, prosecutors have charged.

Using a bizarre code of secret symbols, Spencer Rawlin Brasure sent a series of letters to friends asking that witnesses in his case be “taken care of” prior to his preliminary hearing next month in Municipal Court, prosecutors asserted in court documents filed last week.

Brasure allegedly compiled a “rat list” of witnesses expected to testify against him and attempted to circulate it among his friends so they could intimidate and in some instances kill certain individuals before they could take the witness stand.

Prosecutors say the addresses, phone numbers, and in some instances, Social Security numbers of several witnesses were supplied to Brasure by the public defender’s office in violation of state law.

“The public defender has been used in an attempt to change the story of a witness and to act as a messenger of threats and solicitations,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Pachowicz writes in the motion.

But Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said the allegations against his office are irresponsible and false. And Deputy Public Defender Gary Windom, one of the two attorneys handling the case, said the claims are baseless.

“It is so preposterously absurd,” Clayman said Wednesday. “We have obligations under the law and we represent our clients zealously, responsibly and ethically.”

State law explicitly states that defense attorneys may not disclose or permit to be disclosed to a defendant the addresses or telephone numbers of victims or witnesses in a case. Violations can result in legal sanctions.

Clayman and Windom declined to comment specifically on Brasure’s letters, saying the issue would be discussed during a court hearing on Friday.

At that hearing, prosecutors plan to seek a court order prohibiting Brasure from contacting, threatening or soliciting the murder of any witnesses in the case.

Brasure, a 27-year-old Hawthorne resident, is one of three suspects charged in the kidnap-torture-slaying of a 20-year-old Redondo Beach man last year.

Park rangers found the burned body of Anthony Guest in bushes in Hungry Valley Recreational Area near Gorman on Sept. 13. Authorities say Guest was abducted under false pretenses, tortured, killed and his body dumped in the remote area of northern Ventura County.

Brasure faces charges of murder, torture, kidnapping, arson, grand theft and conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty.

Co-defendant Billy Lyn Davis, 20, of Lawndale, is charged with murder, kidnapping, theft and conspiracy. And Sandra Johnson, 30, of Gardena, is charged with two counts of conspiracy. They have also pleaded not guilty.

Brasure and Davis could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors say that Johnson and a man who is expected to testify at the preliminary hearing picked up Guest the day he was abducted and took him to a prearranged location where Brasure kidnapped him at gunpoint.

Brasure and Davis, also known as “Whitey” and “Silly,” later bragged to several people about the crime, prosecutors said in their motion.

The statements of those witnesses and a youth who allegedly witnessed Guest’s torture appear to have prompted Brasure to send a series of letters to friends asking for their help in his case, court records show.

“Like I said before time is running out for me,” states a letter dated April 11 to a woman known as “Porky.”

“I go back to court June 16, 1997, and this is where all the evidence and statements will be brought out,” the letter continues. “Pork, if my help doesn’t come before June 16, 1997, I will be totally [screwed].”

In another letter, dated April 7, Brasure asks “Porky” to pass on personal information about witnesses in the case, information contained in a so-called “rat list,” documents show.

He specifically names five witnesses and says they are the “main rats that need to be killed A.S.A.P.”

Brasure also asks the woman to warn a witness that he “better think twice before taking the stand” because the Hells Angels have located his son in prison and “won’t hesitate” to kill him, according to a copy of the letter included in the motion.

Prosecutors discovered the correspondence after Brasure received a letter from an inmate in a Los Angeles County jail. It is the policy of Ventura County jail officials to review any letters from other detention facilities, the motion explains.

The letter contained a bizarre coded message of letters and symbols. When Brasure received a second letter in the same coded language, jail officials searched his cell for clues to crack the code, the motion states.

After cracking the code, authorities notified detectives on the case and search warrants were executed on Brasure’s outgoing mail and the home of “Porky.”