Dozens of condemned prisoners from Orange County may no longer face the death penalty thanks to a statewide round of commutations that Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday, Nov. 5.
The governor’s office cited 47 convicts from Orange County whose death-penalty verdicts Newsom is moving to change to life without the possibility of parole, though the state Supreme Court will have final say in at least some of those cases.
Orange County courts haven’t sent a defendant to death row in nearly a decade. But some of the most high-profile killers in county history remain in state prison under death penalty convictions.
They include:
Daniel Wozniak, 42, received a death sentence in 2016 for killing Samuel Herr and Juri “Julie” Kibuishi in order to fund his wedding to a fellow community-theater actor. Wozniak killed Herr in a theater at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos and disposed of his body parts in Long Beach’s El Dorado Park. He shot Kibuishi to death in the apartment of Herr, his neighbor. His plan to frame Herr for Kibuishi’s killing so that he could steal from Herr’s bank account quickly fell apart.
Steven Gordon, 57, who spent years begging for the death penalty, got his wish come true in 2017. Gordon, who served as his own attorney during his capital murder trial, openly admitted to the abductions and murders of four women he and his partner kidnapped from prostitution hubs in Santa Ana and Anaheim before forcibly taking them back to an Anaheim business park where he worked and lived. The women were strangled and left in trash bins.
Iftekhar Murtaza, 42, received the death penalty in 2015 for murdering his ex-girlfriend’s father and sister during one of the most brutal slayings in county history. Murtaza killed Jayprakash and Karishma Dhaka, the father and sister of his ex-girlfriend, and nearly killed her mother, because he believed the family forced their breakup due to the family being devout Hindus while Murtaza is a Muslim. Murtaza abducted the three family members from their Anaheim home and then brutally beat and stabbed them. The burned bodies of Jayprakash and Karisma Dhaka were found near a bike trail in Irvine. The mother was found unconscious, her throat slashed, on a neighbor’s lawn near the family’s burning home.
Skyler Deleon, 47, was sentenced to death in 2009 for three slayings, including the murders at sea of a couple forced to sign over ownership of their yacht before they were tied to an anchor and thrown overboard. Thomas and Jackie Hawks, who were living aboard their 55-foot yacht, were killed in 2004 after showing their boat to Deleon. He was also convicted of killing Jon Peter Jarvi, a fellow inmate he had convinced to give him more than $50,000 for a purported investment opportunity, only to slash his throat and leave him to die on the side of a road in Mexico.
Randy Kraft, 81, believed to be Orange County’s most prolific serial killer, was sentenced to death in 1989. Known as the Freeway Killer, Kraft during a 13-year span may have killed as many as 65 young men in California, Oregon and Michigan. A meek-looking computer programmer who lived a quiet suburban lifestyle, Kraft was convicted of killing 16 men in Orange County. His killing spree came to an end when he was caught with a dead Marine in his Toyota sedan in 1983. A list that prosecutors referred to as a “score card” of his kills — with 65 names — was in the trunk of the car.
Clemency requests for anyone convicted of a felony more than once will need to be approved by the California Supreme Court. According to a list released by the governor’s office, that would appear to include Gordon and Deleon, but not Kraft, Murtaza or Wozniak.
Gov. Newsom’s decision would not impact future death penalty cases. Newsom’s successor, Governor-elect Xavier Becerra, has said he will extend the current moratorium on executions.
California Gov. Newsom says he will commute all death sentences in state to life without parole