Father’s Gun Threat Led to Hiring Killer, Son Testifies : Courts: Montrose man says he was abused all his life, but prosecutors say Raymond Godlewski Jr. ordered the slaying to collect an inheritance.

A 24-year-old Montrose man testified Friday that he offered a boyhood friend $7,000 to kill his father because his father threatened him with a loaded AK-47 rifle.

Testifying in his own defense during his trial in San Fernando Superior Court, Raymond Godlewski Jr. said his father held the rifle’s barrel to the son’s cheek and said: “I made you. I can destroy you.”

Later that same day, July 1, 1989, Godlewski testified, he offered longtime friend Gene Marshall Flack $7,000 to kill Raymond Godlewski Sr., 45. Three days later, the elder Godlewski was found shot to death in the entryway of his Sylmar house.

Defense attorney Kenneth P. Lezin maintains that the father was a brutal parent and that the younger Godlewski was in a “nearly psychotic” state when he contracted for the killing.

Godlewski and Flack, 24, who prosecutors say fired the single shotgun blast to the head that killed the father, and Michael Brown, 21, who allegedly drove the getaway car, are on trial before Judge Ronald S. Coen in the death of the senior Godlewski.

The son tearfully testified Thursday that his father beat and abused him when he was growing up and verbally harassed him at a trucking company where they both worked. The father was demanding to know the whereabouts of his ex-wife when he threatened his son with the rifle, according to defense accounts.

Prosecutors claim a far different motive for the killing. They say Godlewski had his father killed to collect a $280,000 inheritance.

Godlewski testified Friday that he off-handedly mentioned to Flack on June 6, 1989, that he wished someone would kill his father. Flack, he testified, offered to kill the elder Godlewski for $5,000.

Godlewski said he told Flack, “Do it,” but didn’t believe Flack really would kill his father.

Nearly a month later, however, after the alleged incident with the AK-47 rifle, Godlewski said he paid Flack $7,000 and provided details on his father’s whereabouts.

Godlewski and Flack, charged with murder for hire, face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted, Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Richman said. Brown faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted on first-degree murder charges, Richman said. The case will be decided by two juries--one for Flack and Brown, the other for Godlewski.

Flack’s court-appointed attorney, Jack R. Stone, has contended that Flack agreed to kill Godlewski’s father but never carried out the act. Stone contends that Godlewski was the one who killed his father.