Man sentenced to death in Long Beach woman’s 1998 slaying

She was a mother of three, going to the market to pick up food for a neighbor. They were “stupid drunk,� a witness would later tell police: loud, rowdy and obnoxious.

And when they met by chance late at night on Dec. 29, 1998, the first words they uttered seemed to fit the season.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,� the three men shouted from across the road.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year,� she yelled back.

The men’s boisterous greeting, prosecutors say, was followed up with a grisly murder in which 43-year-old Penny Keprta of Long Beach was sexually assaulted, tortured and beaten to death. Her body was dumped on an embankment along the 405 Freeway, near the attack. The killers made off with $6 in food stamps.

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sentenced Kevin Darnell Pearson, 36, to death. He will join the other two assailants, who are also awaiting their executions.

“Your death will be quick and painless, unlike what you did to my mother,� said Teddy Keprta, who was 14 years old at the time of his mom’s slaying.

Teddy Keprta told Pearson that his mother’s death caused irreversible damage to his family.

“I can’t wait to have the satisfaction of sitting there and watching you die,� he said, his voice quivering.

Investigators said Pearson and his two friends removed Keprta’s clothes, stomped on her and threw her over a fence onto the freeway embankment near Wardlow Road and Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach.

The freeway’s traffic noise drowned out her cries for help, authorities said. Caltrans workers discovered her body a couple of days later, partially covered in mulch. The victim’s face was “totally unrecognizable,� said Deputy Dist. Atty. Corene Locke-Noble, who successfully prosecuted all three men.

The medical examiner found 114 distinct injuries to Keprta’s body, according to court documents, including bite marks and the partial removal of her right ear. Authorities found evidence that she had been raped and sexually assaulted with a wooden stake.

The day after the attack, Pearson allegedly told a neighbor, “We killed a white woman,� according to court documents. Investigators found Keprta’s blood on Pearson’s pants and steel-toe boots.

Initially, Pearson admitted his involvement in the killing to police. And, in a letter to a family friend after his arrest, Pearson wrote that he heard Keprta’s bones breaking while she was beaten.

Pearson later tried to minimize his role in the attack, testifying during his 2003 trial that he told the other two killers to leave Keprta alone. He testified that he had lied about his involvement in the crime because he was scared and thought that he would earn an early release by telling police what they wanted to hear.

A jury found Pearson guilty in 2003 on eight counts, including first-degree murder and torture. He was sentenced to death. Last year, the California Supreme Court overturned that sentence, finding that a prospective juror was improperly removed from the panel for having ambivalent views about capital punishment.

The death sentence imposed by Judge Tomson T. Ong on Wednesday followed a retrial of the penalty phase this year in a Long Beach courtroom.

“Forty-eight people heard this case,� Locke-Noble said, referring to the other defendants’ trials and Pearson’s retrial. “Each one indicated death.�

She added that Keprta’s slaying was the “worst case� she’s prosecuted in her 29-year career.

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