Fitness Trainer Found Guilty in Stabbing Death of Woman : Court: Jury convicts Valley Village man, 37, who had a history of sexual assault. The panel will next decide whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison.

VAN NUYS —  A Valley Village man with a history of sexual assault was convicted Monday in the 1993 brutal stabbing death of a Thousand Oaks woman who had hired him as a personal fitness trainer.

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury deliberated nearly four days before finding Douglas Oliver Kelly, 37, guilty of murder with the special circumstances that the death occurred in the course of a rape and robbery, and that a deadly weapon was used.

Kelly showed no emotion as the verdict was read and stared straight ahead as each juror was polled.

Beginning Thursday, the same jury will begin hearing testimony to decide whether Kelly should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of 19-year-old Sara Weir, who was stabbed 34 times in the chest with a pair of scissors.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen said the brutality of the incident demands the death penalty.

“The jury I suspect is waiting for the opportunity to sentence him to death,” Ipsen said outside the courtroom. “Some cases are so clear that the aggravating circumstances demand the death penalty. That is the only way justice can be obtained in this case.”

Deputy Public Defender Dennis Cohen, who represented Kelly, declined to comment on the verdict.

Weir’s mother, Martha Farwell, said she, too, would like to see Kelly sentenced to death.

“I am generally in favor of the death penalty, and particularly in favor of it in this case,” Farwell said.

Weir’s decomposing body was found Sept. 15, 1993, in a Valley Village apartment Kelly had shared with a former girlfriend, who had broken up with him after she complained that he beat her.

Weir had been reported missing Sept. 7, and officials believe she may have been dead for at least a week before her nude body was discovered by Kelly’s former girlfriend, who had returned to retrieve mail and other belongings.

Weir met Kelly at a Burbank gym where he worked as a janitor, but took on clients as a personal trainer on the side. Police do not know if Weir went willingly or was forced to go to Kelly’s apartment the day she was killed.

It had been only a few months since Weir had moved out of her parents’ Thousand Oaks home to work as a production assistant at Warner Bros. studio in Burbank when she was killed. Weir had been temporarily living in the Mid-Wilshire area.

Kelly had been arrested for beating his former girlfriend and spent a short time in jail, but eluded a Florida arrest warrant for a 1991 rape by giving police a false date of birth.

Police said that immediately after the slaying, Kelly fled to Mexico in Weir’s Ford Bronco. He was arrested Nov. 24, 1993, in Laredo, Tex., as he tried to re-enter the United States.

Ipsen said he was particularly pleased with the conviction because of the difficulty in getting “acquaintance-rape” rape cases even filed, and because Kelly had been able to manipulate the judicial system to avoid a prison sentence despite being arrested more than a dozen times for rape.

“He is an extremely skilled and vile predator,” Ipsen said. “He was able to learn to manipulate the system by becoming friends and socializing with his victims and then compromise them by raping them in his apartment.”

Ipsen said that Kelly has been arrested at least five times for rape, including two incidents in New Jersey and once in Miami, but never was sentenced to prison.