Man Sentenced to Life in Prison Following Third Trial

By Terri Vermeulen Keith, City News Service

A man convicted of first-degree murder for gunning down his estranged wife with one of their children in the house and another waiting outside in a car 20 years ago was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Wednesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus denied the defense's motion for a new trial for Dale R. Hurd, 62, who was found guilty last November of the April 17, 1993, shooting death of his estranged wife, Bea.

“The defendant was not denied a fair trial,” the judge said.

Bea Hurd -- who had served her husband with divorce papers 16 days earlier -- collapsed at the feet of the couple's 4-year-old son after being shot in the bedroom she and Hurd once shared. She was at the home in a Los Angeles neighborhood just outside of Culver City to pick up the couple's two children from an overnight visit.

The prosecution argued during the trial that the victim “was going to cost him a lot of money,” referring to alimony that Hurd could have been ordered to pay his wife.

Jurors found true the special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain, along with an allegation that Hurd had personally used a semi-automatic handgun during the crime.

It was the third time a jury had heard the case and the second time that Hurd has been convicted of his wife's murder.

Jurors in his first trial deadlocked, while the second jury to hear the case convicted Hurd in March 1995, resulting in a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole.

His first-degree murder conviction was overturned in August 2010 by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Hurd's rights were affected by the prosecution's multiple references to his silence when he was asked to demonstrate how the accidental shooting occurred.

In his most recent trial, Hurd testified that he accidentally shot his wife while “trying to impress her, to show that I could protect her” as a verdict loomed in the federal civil rights trial of four police officers who had been acquitted in state court of charges stemming from the Rodney King beating.

“Right when the gun went off, it was devastating,” he told jurors. “It shattered my life.”

But Deputy District Attorney Heather Steggell told jurors that Hurd's wife had left him and that “she was going to cost him a lot of money” in spousal and child support.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Brodey -- who represented Hurd in each of his three trials -- countered that his client was trying to show his wife how to protect herself. Hurd was loading a round into the gun's chamber when it jammed and then inadvertently fired, Brodey told jurors.

Both of the couple's children, who are now in their 20s, testified during the prosecution's case.

The couple's daughter, Diana, told jurors that she was 7 when her mother was killed. She said she was inside her mother's blue Jeep Grand Cherokee outside the house when she heard a gunshot. She said her father -- whom she referred to in court as “Dale” -- came out of the house carrying her 4-year-old brother and told them to remain in the vehicle while he called 911.

When asked if he appeared to be upset or was crying, Diana Hurd said he did not.

When asked about previous incidents in which she recalled hearing her parents fighting, she said she had a vague memory of her father pushing her mother into a wall on one occasion and remembered that another time, she was awakened by her mother screaming and walked into the room to see the woman being choked by the defendant.

“He yelled at her and accused her of scratching him,” she said.

Charles Hurd, who was 4 at the time of the shooting, testified that he remembered seeing his mother “falling down the stairs and screaming and falling in front of the door.”

The two -- who were raised by an uncle -- said they have not had any contact with their father since then.

Just before the sentence was imposed, Steggell read back statements from the victim's mother, Jean Cook, who has since died, and the victim's brother, John Cook, that were made at Hurd's initial sentencing in 1995.

“I will never forget the evenings we had to tell them the awful truth of their mother's death, and how I held them in my arms and rocked back and forth as we shared the ultimate pain of this loss, knowing the truth, but not wanting to recognize the horror of this senseless killing,” Jean Cook said at her son-in-law's first sentencing. “How would we say in the gentle way your father has murdered your mother? Suffering from the death of their mother, the incarceration of their father, and the apprehension of moving to a different place, these children have been traumatized beyond description.”

John Cook -- who raised the couple's two children -- said at the 1995 hearing that he wanted to “thank the court for allowing the truth to be heard in this case” and asked the court to instruct Hurd to “assume responsibility for his actions.”

Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers told the judge that Hurd “brutally killed his wife.”

Hurd's attorney told the judge that he believed the case had become a trial of “rumor and innuendo” and  “whether he was a bad guy” based on statements by witnesses over the victim's statements to them about instances of domestic violence by her husband. He had said after last November's verdict that his client was “still grieving over his wife [and] the loss of his family.”

The judge noted that the same evidence had been presented at Hurd's second trial and that the defendant had put his estranged wife's credibility on her statements about domestic violence at issue during his testimony, saying the crime was “just as important today” even though the shooting happened 20 years ago.

“My assumption is that Mr. Hurd will live with this for the rest of his life,” Marcus said.