Larry Hazlett – black, age 30
Sentenced to death in
Kern County , California
By: A jury
Date of crime: 10/24/1978
Prosecution’s
case/defense response: Hazlett raped and murdered former beauty queen, Tana
Woolley. Hazlett lived in Woolley’s apartment building and was the prime
suspect initially, but police lacked evidence to arrest him. The case went
unsolved for 24 years until DNA evidence pointed to Hazlett. In aggravation,
prosecution presented evidence of four other rapes Hazlett committed. The defense
attacked the DNA evidence, arguing the semen was not initially found on the
bedspread.
Prosecutor(s): Ed
Jagels
Defense lawyer(s):
James Coker
Sources: Los
Angeles 6/19/04 , 6/25/04 ,
7/15/05
Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer
ROSAMOND - Conviction
of the man who murdered their daughter 26 years ago has brought some closure
for William and Helen Woolley, but their loss will never heal.
Larry Hazlett, a
56-year-old former high school teacher from Sacramento
``It's been one that
I hope no one else has to go through,'' William Woolley said of the two-decade
wait for justice. ``You just hope every day that something is going to come
down the line to let you know that they finally found the guy and convicted
him.''
He added: ``There's never going to be a complete closure,
because you know the wound is healed but the scar is going to be always
there.''
Hazlett was sentenced
to death July 14, five days before what would have been Tana Woolley's 46th
birthday. The jury deliberated one hour and 10 minutes before returning a
guilty verdict.
``I really had a
feeling he would be convicted. I thought with all the evidence, how could they
not convict him?'' Helen Woolley said during an interview in their home,
decorated with portraits and photographs of their four children and seven
grandchildren.
Helen Woolley found
her daughter, a 20-year-old Antelope Valley
College Oct. 25, 1978 , in her apartment on Poplar
Street
The murder shocked
residents of the tiny town and left them wondering who the killer was.
Neighbors later said
they heard a scream the night before, officials said. A coroner's medical
examiner reported she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Hazlett lived in
Woolley's apartment building. He was tapped immediately as the prime suspect,
but investigators said they lacked evidence to arrest him.
``Right after the
(O.J.) Simpson trial, I started calling, saying, 'Can't you do something with
DNA?''' Helen Woolley said.
The Woolleys'
youngest daughter, Taryn, in the last two years before Hazlett's arrest in
2002, called detectives every month to check on the case.
She made a photo
album containing pictures of her sister when she was little, family photos, and
poems by Tana, and gave it to detectives, telling them, ``I want you to get
close to her.''
On the day of the
press conference announcing Hazlett's arrest, the detectives gave the album
back to her and told the family the album did help.
``Bless my daughter
and wife. They never let up on those guys,'' William Woolley said. ``It was as
much a relief to them finding him to get Helen and Taryn off their backs.''
When the Kern County
Sheriff's Department lab for processing DNA evidence opened, their daughter's
case was the first one taken up, William Woolley said.
``The DNA got him,''
Helen Woolley said. ``Technology caught up with him,'' her husband added.
Six detectives worked
on the murder case, and one of them, who has since passed away, said the
hardest thing for him in law enforcement was having to retire from the force
before arresting the killer.
Tana Woolley
graduated from Rosamond High
School
The Woolleys
described their firstborn as the perfect child, who acted as the big sister and
peacemaker to her three siblings and accomplished much in her short life.
She had a radiant
personality, was a cheerleader and student government officer in high school,
and had planned a career teaching handicapped children.
``She was always ... if
you are going to have a perfect child, it would be her,'' Helen Woolley said.
``She was like a
little Mother Hen,'' her father said. ``If a family could order a child, that
would be the one you would want to order.''
The Woolleys have
lived in Rosamond for 37 years. Their three other children gone, they now share
their home with a 5-year-old Pomeranian named Chamois.
William Woolley, 70,
retired three years ago as a test-wing program manager at Edwards Air Force
Base. Helen Woolley, 68, retired from working in the guidance office at Rosamond
High School
They plan to
eventually move to Las Vegas
A film crew from
cable show ``Cold Case Files'' on A&E is coming out in mid-August to
interview family members and police about the case for a future episode.
``The reason we want
to do that is to let other families in the same situation that we were in know
never to give up hope. Once you give up, you have lost the battle. As long as
you have hope and are determined to see the case is closed, that gives you
something to shoot for,'' William Woolley said.
Karen Maeshiro, (661)
257-5744
karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com
(color) William and
Helen Woolley of Rosamond hold a picture of their daughter, Tana Woolley, who
was killed in 1978.
Jeff Goldwater/Staff
Photographer
Julie ann brook (Member): I met this creep, and am glad he
got death! 8/2/2010 10:20 PM
Back in 1978, I knew
a lady who lived in those apartments, and met Larry Hazlett on one of my visits
to my friend. I had my 4 year old daughter with me, and he tried to speak to me
"and" my daughter. I told him I wasn't interested in him or anything
he had to say, and he cussed me out and accused me of being prejudice against
black people. As I was walking to my car, he grabbed me by the arm and said we
would meet up again one day. I jerked away and told him NEVER! As I left he got
in his little dark green MG, and proceeded to follow me, so I went to the
police station and reported him. They said they really couldn't do anything because
he hadn't committed a crime...to me he "had" because he had evety
intention of doing harm to me & my daughter. Needless to say, I never
returned to my friends apartment again. Like I said, he should have gotten the
death penalty long long ago.
Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer
Kern County Superior
Court jurors will begin hearing testimony Monday on whether 56-year-old Larry
Hazlett should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison for the 1978
slaying of a Rosamond community pageant queen.
Hazlett of Sacramento
was convicted of raping and murdering former Miss Rosamond Tana Woolley, a
crime that had gone unsolved for 24 years until DNA technology helped
detectives pin down Hazlett as a suspect.
Woolley, then 20 and
an Antelope Valley
College Oct. 25,
1978 , in her apartment in the 2100 block of Poplar
Street
Neighbors reported hearing a scream the night before,
officials said. Coroner's reports indicated she'd been sexually assaulted and
strangled.
Hazlett, who lived in
Woolley's apartment building at the time of her slaying, was tapped immediately
as the prime suspect, but investigators said they lacked evidence to arrest
him.
After deliberating 1
1/2 hours, the Bakersfield
Prosecutors had
presented evidence that samples of the defendant's DNA matched stains found on
Woolley's bedspread the night she was killed.
Evidence was
presented at trial that Hazlett raped four other women.
After working on the
case for six years, investigators relegated it to inactive status - still
unsolved, but not being actively investigated.
Detective Chris Speer
reactivated the case in March 1999 - partly in response to the Woolley family's
regular telephone calls inquiring whether any news had turned up.
After reading the old
files, the detective contacted Hazlett in Sacramento
Those samples were
sent to the Kern County District Attorney's Office crime lab, which determined
that DNA evidence from the crime scene matched the DNA profile of Hazlett,
detectives said.
Woolley graduated
from Rosamond High
School Antelope
Valley College
Karen Maeshiro, (661)
267-5744
karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com
Kern's longest serving DA to step down, speaks on
controversial career
District Attorney Ed Jagels, who is a household name in Kern
County
As news bombshells, that ranks low. His departure has been
expected since 2007. That's when Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green
announced she was interested in the job.
Jagels, however, didn't publicly confirm his retirement
until a recent, wide-ranging interview with The Californian.
Over the course of his long tenure as district attorney,
Jagels frequently landed in the public spotlight as a lightning rod for
controversy.
He proudly embraced his "tough on crime" approach.
His campaign slogan was "ask a cop," implying that his tough stance
on crime had the support of police and deputies.
"This is a law enforcement county and Ed Jagels is a
law enforcement DA," former Kern County Sheriff Carl Sparks said.
There can be no arguing Jagels' office locks a lot of people
up.
Stastistics show Kern
County San Francisco County
That has earned him critics.
In 1999 the book "Mean Justice" was published,
alleging that Jagels fostered a longstanding pattern of overzealous
prosecutions. Many local defense attorneys agreed.
Throughout it all, Jagels remained at the helm, running
unopposed for six times after his initial victory in 1982.
"We have not been overzealous -- but I hope we've been
zealous," Jagels replied.
His tenure definitely included the prosecution of heinous
criminals. There was Vincent Brothers, who killed five people including his
three young children. And Juan Villa Ramirez, who brutally murdered Arvin High
football star Chad Yarbrough. And Charles Ray Hall, the so-called Oildale
rapist, who attacked a series of women in their homes.
But Jagels also was dogged by a string of discredited child
molestation ring cases, the killing of his number two man by a former district
attorney investigator, and allegations that he was part a group of powerful,
gay men known as The Lords of Bakersfield.
MOLESTATION CASES
There were eight molestation ring cases with 46 defendants
charged between 1982 and 1985. Many were convicted and some sent to prison for
hundreds of years. Jagels applauded his prosecution teams.
But in 1986 the state Attorney General's Office stepped in
and declared that the children were improperly questioned. The state report
said investigators all but put words in the children's mouths.
In the years that followed, appellate courts overturned most
of the convictions. Prosecutorial misconduct was a factor in a couple cases.
Many children recanted.
Jagels said he now accepts that mistakes were made in those
cases.
His perspective is that those cases came at a time when
investigative techniques and prosecutions were "in their infancy"
after decades of sweeping that crime under the rug, he said. The flaws included
too many interviews and "inherently suggestive questioning," he said.
The attorney general's office recommended changes which have
since been implemented here and elsewhere, Jagels said.
"If those cases came today, we would have handled them
differently," Jagels said. "But what we had at the time, I think we
handled them the best we could."
That comment surprised Brenda Kniffen, who with her husband
Scott spent more than 12 years in prison before a judge ruled the two did not
get a fair trial because their children were improperly questioned. The two
have always maintained their innocence.
Jagels "never admitted his problems," Kniffen
said. "He's always said we were guilty."
She said she was most disheartened by deceitful
investigators who played her sons against each other. Kniffen said they told
one son his brother said something the brother never said.
She said she believes Jagels should have intervened to put a
stop to the flawed prosecutions. And Jagels should have put the brakes on
Deputy District Attorney Andrew Gindes, she said.
One of Gindes' cases was overturned for prosecutorial
misconduct. Kniffen said Gindes scared her little boys.
"What upsets me the most is all the years I spent away
from my kids," she said. Now she and her husband live in another state and
they see their sons regularly.
"We're not holding onto anger," she said. "It
would hurt us more and would get us nowhere."
Attorney Michael Snedeker of Portland ,
Ore.
But then he came across false evidence and evidence that had
been withheld.
"I thought it was very shifty," Snedeker said.
He criticized Jagels for not admitting fault.
"Truth and justice meant nothing to him," Snedeker
said.
Some of the defendants won millions of dollars in lawsuits.
The latest came just last month, when John Stoll, who spent
20 years in prison, settled for $5.5 million. He had been convicted of
molesting a half dozen children. All but one have recanted their testimony.
Jagels has continued to insist that Stoll was guilty,
pointing out that one victim has never wavered from his claims of being
molested.
Stoll did not return phone calls seeking comment.
CONVICTIONS AT ALL COSTS?
Overzealous prosecutions in Kern
County
The book highlighted the 1992 trial of Patrick Dunn, a
retired high school principal accused of murdering his wife.
The book alleged prosecutors withheld evidence, among other
misdeeds, leading to a wrongful conviction. Humes declined to comment for this
story.
Jagels blasted the accuracy of the book with a huge press
release claiming more than 100 factual errors, false claims and gross
distortions. Humes defended his "well-documented" research.
The Dunn case was what Jagels called "a run of the mill
murder with very strong evidence of the defendant's guilt."
He said the prosecutor, John Somers, was "one of the
most ethical prosecutors ever in this business" and is now a judge.
Nothing crucial was withheld from the defense, Jagels said.
THE VIOLENT DEATH OF A FRIEND AND NUMBER TWO MAN
On a personal level, Jagels had to deal with the 2002
killing of his close friend and Number Two man in the office, Assistant
District Attorney Stephen Tauzer.
Tauzer was stabbed to death by former district attorney
investigator Chris Hillis, who pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter for
a 12-year prison term.
At the center of their dispute was 22-year-old Lance Hillis,
the son of Chris and the godson of Tauzer. Lance Hillis was a drug addict who
was killed six weeks before Tauzer in a traffic accident near the El
Dorado County
Tauzer used his power and influence to put him in
rehabilitation rather than jail. Chris Hillis believed his son wouldn't get
better unless he hit rock bottom in prison.
Chris Hillis also believed Tauzer was having a gay
relationship with his son. Tauzer denied that and Chris Hillis ultimately said
he couldn't prove it. Sheriff's investigators found no evidence of such a relationship.
Jagels said he talked to both men, telling Tauzer that he
didn't believe rehabilitation was the answer for Lance.
Still, Jagels said he was shocked by the killing and that he
never saw it coming.
He said he didn't think he could have done anything to
prevent it. Everyone involved was an adult and had a right to pursue what each
thought was right, Jagels said.
Tauzer's death "was very difficult for me," Jagels
said. "He was a very dedicated prosecutor and a long-time friend of mine.
The perpetrator was also a friend of mine."
LORDS OF BAKERSFIELD
Tauzer's slaying evoked memories of the "Lords of
Bakersfield," a group of powerful gay men in public life who reportedly
had sex with underage boys and girls but were never prosecuted. Several of the alleged
"Lords" were murdered, including Ed Buck, a former Kern
County
The similarities between the Tauzer case and the others came
up in a 2002 "Lords of Bakersfield" investigative series by The
Californian -- and the paper asked what Jagels knew about Tauzer's relationship
with Lance Hillis and about the Lords cases.
At one point, the paper submitted written questions to
Jagels. Several asked if the prosecutor knew about alleged sex parties in the
1980s at the home of former publisher Ted Fritts, if he had attended or
participated, or ever done anything to protect those who had.
Jagels said the questions "are so loaded with malice,
innuendo and false assumptions" that it would be "silly for me to
dignify" them with a response.
The questions, as well as many of the stories written about
Tauzer, led to a rift between Jagels and The Californian.
Jagels said the newspaper "invented scandals that don't
exist. All of these things were inventions," and reduced the newspaper
"to a local version of the National Enquirer."
Mike Jenner, executive editor of the newspaper, replied,
"We didn't invent a scandal. We repeatedly asked for Jagels to respond and
he didn't."
GOOD PRESS
But Jagels has frequently fared well with the local media --
even The Californian.
After all, whatever the critics said, Jagels was never
challenged for re-election. No one in Kern's history stayed in the job as long
as Jagels.
"He told the public exactly what he would do and they
re-elected him," defense attorney Michael Lukehart said.
"I really don't know how Kern
County
Families of victims have also put in a good word for Jagels.
Taryn Cain said it's "hard to hear" how people
blast Jagels. "We don't see that side of him."
Cain's sister, Tana Woolley, was 20 years old in 1978 --
just two years after she was crowned Miss Rosamond -- when someone sexually assaulted
and strangled her to death. The case went unsolved for 24 years.
Cain and her mother, Helen Woolley, never stopped calling
sheriff's investigators and the district attorney's office. No one gave up, she
said.
And then one night in 2002, Cain and her parents were
together when the call came in that DNA evidence -- which wasn't even a
technique in 1978 -- had led to the arrest of Larry Hazlett Jr.
Jagels personally prosecuted the case and won a conviction
and the death penalty in 2004. It was the last case he handled himself.
"He's wonderful," Cain said. "He helped get
closure for our family. I don't know if anyone else could have done a better
job than he did. Just last weekend, I talked about him with my parents. He's
such a caring person."
PRAISE FROM CRITICS
People in Kern County
"I disagree totally with his approach on
incarceration," recently retired Public Defender Mark Arnold said.
"It's not the panacea for public safety. Addressing the root causes of
crime is."
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Kyle Humphrey agrees,
saying Jagels' staff needs to work more for rehabilitation than incarceration.
"People aren't all bad because they've committed a
crime," he said.
Humphrey, who once was one of Jagels' most aggressive
prosecutors, said "it's about time" that Jagels steps down.
"The world he's been a prosecutor in is changing,"
he said.
Taxpayers can't afford to lock a person up to keep that
person from committing a crime -- an approach Jagels equates with public
safety, Humphrey said.
Retired judge Frank Hoover, who ran a drug court with the
goal of getting people off drugs, said it was frustrating that Jagels wouldn't
subscribe to alternatives to jail.
Jagels said he was always careful to be right about beefs
with judges because he knew they couldn't respond.
And yet, Arnold Hoover
During the last 14 years that Arnold Arnold
The second week Arnold Kern County
"We agreed we'll stab each other in the front, and he
honored that," Arnold
Humphrey said Jagels "is probably the best boss a
person could have. He gave us a lot of discretion to develop as attorneys. He
was always compassionate to the needs of his employees."
And Hoover
Defense attorney Michael Lukehart said a byproduct of
aggressive prosecutions was "it "gave me the chance to perfect and
hone my talents."
STATEWIDE IMPACTS
Jagels' impact went far beyond in Kern
County
One of his closest associates, now retired Assistant
District Attorney Dan Sparks, said Jagels has been "outstanding for the
state of California
Jagels was a leader in the state to remove three members of
the Rose Bird-led California Supreme Court in 1986.
"That was critically important to the safety of
Californians," Sparks
The Bird court overturned all the death penalty cases before
it. In Jagels' view, it left California
Jagels' next step, Sparks
"No longer could defense attorneys keep a rape victim
on the stand for three days," Jagels said.
Proposition 115 also refined the jury selection process,
restored grand jury indictments, created the crime of torture and streamlined
criminal procedure, Jagels said.
"I'm quite proud of that," he said.
Despite harsh criticism from defense attorneys, Jagels was a
staunch defender of the Three Strikes law in California
Mark Arnold and other defense attorneys believe there are many
cases where defendants are punished far to harshly under that law for a
relatively minor crime that came many years after their past felony
convictions.
Jagels said the law goes after "those guys who are most
likely to re-offend." He added he's proud that he has the "highest
per capita three strikes convictions in the state."
In his last months of office, Jagels is working daily to
"minimize" the effort in California
"It's disheartening to live in a state where we have
extra welfare benefits, prevailing (high union) wages on public construction
jobs and billions of dollars in benefits for illegal immigrants, but it wants
to "release dangerous felons," he said.
CLOSER TO HOME
On a local level, Jagels said he is most proud of the good
relationships his office has with the police, the strengthening of the his
office's investigative unit and making the crime lab "one of the premier
labs in the state. That has allowed us to solve and prosecute any number of
serious crimes."
Among the things that please Jagels the most is when his
office shines on a particularly difficult case that uses a broad array of
innovative techniques to get a conviction.
The trial of Vincent Brothers, a former school vice
principal convicted and sentenced to death for the 2003 murders of his
mother-in-law, wife and three small children, "was a perfect example of
what we're all about," Jagels said.
The case included reams of investigation reports, crime lab
evidence and even scientific testimony that bugs on Brothers' rental car showed
he drove across the county to kill his family. Prosecutor Lisa Green had to
distill all that into an easy-to-understand case for jurors, Jagels said.
Over the years, his prosecutors "really have an
extraordinary record of success, considering they have among the heaviest case
loads in the state," Jagels said. "We take and convict in cases many
other district attorney office wouldn't ever issue."
"I've been very proud to have worked with them,"
Jagels said.
His latest year-long quest was to target 115 "shot
callers" in the local gangs and try to put as many behind bars or out of
commission as possible. At summer's end this year about 90 percent of those on
the list are either in custody, dead, moved out of state or the subject of
warrants and pending cases, Jagels said.
OFF INTO THE SUNSET
Jagels said he held off announcing his retirement to avoid
being a lame duck during tough budget negotiations with the Kern County Board
of Supervisors this summer.
But now he's getting ready to move on to a life of
retirement he intends to fill with more hunting, fishing, snow skiing, reading
history and spending more time with his youngest son, 10-year-old Jeff.
He hasn't had any plans to run for another public office
during his 35 years as a prosecutor, and has no plans in the future, he said.
If the right law enforcement related job came along, he might consider doing
that, but he doesn't want to leave Bakersfield
He said he's quite comfortable passing the baton to Green, a
26-year-veteran of the office who is the only announced candidate for the
position. "She's an extraordinary prosecutor and very well
respected," Jagels said.
Considering all he's been through, would he do it
again?"
"Absolutely," Jagels said. "I've got to spend
35 years doing exactly what I wanted to do. I got to try to make society a
little bit better place every day."
JAGELS' FAVORITE CASES HE PERSONALLY PROSECTED:
* Larry Kusuth Hazlett Jr., 56, was convicted in 2004 of
murdering a young Rosamond woman in 1978. It wasn't until 1999 that DNA
evidence on a blanket in her apartment led to Hazlett as a suspect. Hazlett was
sentenced to death of the killing of 20-year-old Tana Woolley. She was crowned
Miss Rosamond in 1976.
* David Leslie Murtishaw was sentenced to death in 2002 for
the third time in the 1978 killings of three University
of Southern California
* Bob Russell Williams Jr. was 18 years old when he admitted
in 1994 to raping, stabbing and strangling 40-year-old Mary Rose Beck at her
home in The Oaks. Despite asserting that Williams had a rough childhood
himself, a jury in 1996 convicted him of capital crimes and he was sentenced to
death.
TIMELINE
Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels
Grew up in the Pasadena-area enclave of San
Marino
His father, George Daniel Jagels, an attorney and
businessman, helped found the Leakey Foundation.
Graduate, Stanford
University College
of Law
In April 1975, joined the staff of Kern County District
Attorney Al Leddy
After Leddy announced his retirement, Jagels won an election
against then-Superior Court Judge Marvin Ferguson. Jagels became Kern
County
Quickly developed reputation as a tough-on-crime prosecutor.
His name was bandied about as a potential Republican candidate for state
office.
In 1982, he was the Kern
County
In the 1980s, Kern
County
The state attorney general's office, defense attorneys,
memory experts and journalists have since criticized the handling of
essentially all of the molestation ring cases.
Convictions in the cases fell apart after a flood of victims
recanted. Reasons included flawed interview techniques, legal technicalities
and prosecutorial misconduct.
In 1986, Jagels led a successful statewide campaign to
remove Rose Bird and two other justices from the California Supreme Court over
their opposition to the death penalty.
Jagels boasts that Kern
County California
In 1994, appointed to the Governor's Law Enforcement
Steering Committee
In 1995, appointed the chairman of the Attorney General's
Policy Council on Violence Prevention.
"Mean Justice, " a national best-selling book by
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes, is published in 1999. Humes
charged Jagels' office too often prosecuted innocent defendants. Jagels said
the book is nonsense.
In fall 2002, Stephen Tauzer, Jagels' longtime friend and
top deputy, was found stabbed to death in Tauzer's garage. A month later, Chris
Hillis, a former investigator in Jagels' office, was charged with Tauzer's
murder.
Despite rumors that he might retire, Jagels won re-election
in 2006.
Sources: Californian archives; Sacramento Bee; Kern County
District Attorney Web site, California
www.dailynews.com, 24
June 2004 [cached]
A Kern County Superior Court judge will decide whether to
accept the jury's recommendation that 56-year-old Larry Hazlett of Sacramento
Hazlett was convicted of raping and murdering former Miss
Rosamond Tana Woolley in 1978 -- a crime that had gone unsolved for 24 years
until DNA technology helped detectives pin down Hazlett as a suspect. Hazlett
was convicted of raping and murdering former Miss Rosamond Tana Woolley in 1978
-- a crime that had gone unsolved for 24 years until DNA technology helped
detectives pin down Hazlett as a suspect.
...
Hazlett, who worked as a high school teacher, is scheduled
to be sentenced July 14, at which time Judge Michael Bush will decide whether
to accept the jury's finding.
...
Hazlett, who lived in Woolley's apartment building at the
time of her slaying, was tapped immediately as the prime suspect, but
investigators said they lacked evidence to arrest him.
...
After reading the old files, the detective contacted Hazlett
in Sacramento
Those samples were sent to the Kern County District
Attorney's Office crime laboratory, where DNA evidence from the crime scene was
matched with the DNA profile of Hazlett, detectives said.
Hazlett has a stepdaughter who has a master's degree and
works in child-protective services, and he has a biological son who is starting
his senior year in college in New York City
Woolley graduated from Rosamond High School in 1976, the
year she was crowned Miss Rosamond.She had been working as a secretary for the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration while attending Antelope Valley
College when she was killed.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rendering their
verdict in the penalty phase of Larry Hazlett Jr.'s trial, jurors agreed that
the 56-year-old should be sentenced to death for the 1978 murder of Tana
Woolley, 20, his former next-door neighbor in the town of Rosamond
Hazlett's lawyer,
Deputy Public Defender Dale Armitage, had pleaded for his client to receive a
sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, arguing that
Hazlett had been a good citizen and family man in the decades since the
killing.
Superior Court Judge
Michael Bush, who is scheduled to formally sentence Hazlett on July 14, can
reject the jury's recommendation. The same jury last week convicted Hazlett on
a charge of first-degree murder with the special circumstance because the
slaying occurred during a rape.
Woolley, a college
student who had been crowned Miss Rosamond in 1976, was found dead in her
bedroom strangled with one of her blue socks taken off her left foot on Oct.
25, 1978. Because he lived next door to the victim's family, Hazlett was
questioned as a witness at the time.
The case remained
unsolved until 2002, when police used new technology and DNA evidence to link
Hazlett to the crime.
Woolley's father,
William, said that while he sympathizes with the family of his daughter's
killer, the jury made the right decision.
"If an animal
kills somebody, you kill the animal," Woolley said. "He's an
animal."
Man accused in slaying has long history of arrests
By STEVE E. SWENSON, Californian staff writer
e-mail:
sswenson@bakersfield.com
http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/2350905p-2406533c.html
The man arrested for
raping and murdering a popular Rosamond woman 24 years
ago has a long
history of arrests -- but few convictions -- for assault and
sexual-related
offenses, court documents released Thursday say.
But Larry Kusuth
Hazlett, 55, is a registered sex offender for a misdemeanor
child molestation
conviction and he fits much of a 1983 FBI profile about
what type of person
killed and sexually assaulted 20-year-old Tana Woolley
in Rosamond, court
reports say.
The profile says the
way Woolley was killed indicates an interracial
crime -- Hazlett is
black and Woolley is white -- by someone who was
rejected by the
victim.
Hazlett was brought
to court Thursday to be arraigned on potential capital
murder charges in
Woolley's strangulation death, but his arraignment was
delayed to Dec. 26 so
that he can try to find an attorney.
He is charged with
murder and special circumstances -- eligible for the
death penalty or life
in prison without the possibility of parole -- of
murder during a rape
and murder during a burglary.
District Attorney Ed
Jagels said a final decision has not been made on
whether to seek the
death penalty against Hazlett.
Hazlett lived in the
same Poplar Street
back window faced her
front window -- and he was interviewed by sheriff's
deputies Oct. 25, 1978 , the day the victim's
mother found her partially nude
daughter laying dead
on her bed with a blue sock wrapped around her neck.
At that time, Hazlett
said he went to the store on the night before --
during the time
witnesses said they heard screams, but shrugged them off as
children -- and he
didn't learn about the death until the day the body was
found.
Witnesses reported
that Woolley, who moved away from her parents and into
the apartment complex
just three weeks earlier, had expressed concerns about
white men staring at
her but she also thought someone from Hazlett's
apartment was looking
at her.
That made her very
careful about opening her door, even when her boyfriend
came by.
He told investigators
she would look out a window before opening up the door
for him, and when he dropped
her off -- as he did at 10:30 p.m.
Oct. 24,
1978, less than an
hour before the screams were heard -- would look around
her apartment to make
sure no one was there.
Just before her
boyfriend, Ricky Max Rush, then 18, took her to her
apartment that night,
they played backgammon and watched "Starsky and Hutch"
on television. Rush
was examined but ruled out as a suspect in the case.
No real progress in
the case was made and it became inactive in 1983, after
the FBI profile was
made.
That profile by
Special Agent Blaine McIlwaine says the door jam of
Woolley's apartment
indicates the front door was forcibly opened.
He said the offender
surprised the victim and hit her in the mouth in the
living room where an
alarm clock was knocked over (she normally slept in the
living room).
Woolley rejected the
offender's advances and he became angry, using a blue
sock he took off her
left foot and wrapped it around her neck, strangling
her to death. The
profiler called it a weapon of opportunity.
The profile says the
offender is probably in his late teens to early 20s --
Hazlett was 31 at the
time -- and he will have a penchant for violence and
assaultive behavior.
A criminal record for
Hazlett shows arrests from 1969 for drugs, burglary,
assault with a deadly
weapon, kidnapping, rape, resisting arrest before
1979, but only one
conviction for assault in 1971.
In 1973, Hazlett was
investigated for raping a woman, but the woman declined
to follow through
with the investigation and Hazlett said he had consensual
sex with the woman,
court records say.
Hazlett worked at
U.S. Borax, but quit in December 1978 after he was accused
of making
tape-recorded bomb threats at the plant -- an accusation he
denied.
His criminal history
continued with arrests from 1979 to 1992 for theft,
indecent exposure,
rape and child molest in various cities, ending with a
1992 misdemeanor
conviction in Sacramento
teacher.
He was acquitted of
five other crimes in the case in which he was convicted
of the misdemeanor.
The Woolley case was
reopened by Kern County
in 1999 who began to
focus on Hazlett because of his criminal history.
On Tuesday of this
week, Hazlett told Kern County
framed in the Sacramento
of Woolley's death
and never was inside of her apartment.
Detective Joe Hicks
asked, "Would it change your story if I told you from
the original crime
scene, the Kern County District Attorney lab found
biological evidence
of you being present?"
Hazlett replied,
"That's a damn lie and at this junction I want a lawyer
right now."
Copyright © 2002, The
Bakersfield
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