2nd Son Convicted of Parents’ Murder for Hire

Neil Woodman, one of two brothers accused of hiring hit men to gun down their parents in a Brentwood garage on Yom Kippur in 1985, was convicted Monday of conspiracy and murder.

In a verdict that wrote the conclusion to the so-called “Ninja murders,” a Superior Court jury found Woodman, 52, guilty of two counts of murder and a sole count of conspiracy.

The verdict ends one of the most enduring crime dramas in Los Angeles history, one of the earliest cases to spawn a made-for-TV movie and book.

To the end, Woodman proclaimed innocence. As the verdict was being read, Woodman shook his head from side to side in apparent disbelief, then turned to his family in the audience and mouthed, “It’s all right. I’m not guilty.”

Judge Robert J. Perry set sentencing for Feb. 26. Woodman--already in custody after being convicted of federal racketeering charges stemming from the killings--faces a sentence of 25 years to life in California prison.

Woodman’s parents, Gerald and Vera Woodman, were ambushed Sept. 25, 1985, while parking their Mercedes after a dinner marking the end of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

He was 67. She was 63.

Neil Woodman’s younger brother, Stewart, 46, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1990. In a deal that spared him a possible death sentence, he agreed to testify against his brother.

Several jurors said Monday that Stewart Woodman’s testimony put his brother away.

“It provided the framework we needed,” said foreman Anthony Lueras, 37, of Rosemead.

Countered Neil Woodman’s wife, Maxine: “I know he’s innocent. Believe me, he has a disgusting, sick, twisted brother.”

Rancor seems to have been a family hallmark, according to people who knew them. Gerald Woodman used to call his 5-year-old daughter “Ugly.”

Neil Woodman hired guards to keep his father away from his son’s bar mitzvah. When Neil and Stewart Woodman arrived at their parents’ funeral, a relative screamed, “Murderers! How dare you come to this gathering?”

Prosecutors alleged that the brothers contracted for murder out of “pure hate” for their father, and for money.

They alleged that the brothers needed an infusion of cash to save the failing Chatsworth-based plastics company their father had founded, and expected to collect on the $506,000 policy on their mother’s life.

The killings became known as the “Yom Kippur murders” or, more popularly, the “Ninja murders” because a witness confused a black-hooded sweatshirt worn by one of the assailants with the type of clothing worn by Japan’s legendary martial-arts warriors.

Six months after the killings, the brothers were arrested--along with another pair of brothers, Robert Homick, a Westside attorney, and Steven Homick, a one-time Los Angeles police officer.

Prosecutors charged that Steven and Robert Homick were the hit men.

Also arrested were two alleged lookouts--a Reseda man, Anthony Majoy, now 57, and a Las Vegas man, Michael Dominguez, now 37.

Hollywood could not resist such characters or the murder-for-hire plot.

In 1993, the case was turned into a two-part TV miniseries starring Elliott Gould.

Later that year, a true-crime whodunit appeared on bookshelves. It earned favorable reviews.

For most of the past 10 years, meanwhile, hearings and trials for the six men arrested in the killings have dragged on in one court or another.

In May 1986, Dominguez pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

In March 1990, Stewart Woodman was convicted of murder and conspiracy.

Majoy was also convicted then of the same charges, and sentenced later that year to life in prison without parole.

Neil Woodman and the Homick brothers went to trial in October 1992.

Seven months later, a jury convicted both Homick brothers of first-degree murder; in Neil Woodman’s case, after 17 days of deliberations, it deadlocked, with seven of 12 jurors favoring conviction.

Steven Homick, now 55, was sentenced to death. He already was on death row in Nevada for an unrelated case, sentenced in 1989 for the murders of an oil heiress, her maid and a deliveryman in Las Vegas.

Robert Homick, now 45, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Meanwhile, in federal court in Las Vegas, both Homick brothers and Neil Woodman were convicted in January 1991 of racketeering charges stemming from the murder of Woodman’s parents.

U.S. District Judge Lloyd George sentenced each of the three men to life in prison on the federal convictions. An appeals court upheld the convictions and sentences in December 1992.

At Neil Woodman’s retrial for murder in Los Angeles, which began Nov. 13, 1995, defense lawyer Gerald Chaleff put the blame on Stewart Woodman.

Prosecutor Patrick Dixon argued that the brothers were partners in crime.

Jurors, foreman Lueras said, weighed the evidence for about a week before taking a first vote last Friday. It was the only vote that was needed.

The verdict was sealed over the weekend and read Monday in court.

TV crews had asked Perry to permit cameras in his courtroom Monday.

In what appears to be turning into standard courtroom procedure in the wake of the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial, the judge kept the cameras out, saying, “I’m just uncomfortable with the idea.”

As each of the three verdicts was read, Neil Woodman shook his head from side to side with increasing vigor. His wife and children held hands and sobbed.

Later, back in his office, prosecutor Dixon paused to reflect on the many twists and turns the case has taken.

“It was a brutal, horrible crime. My only regret is that [a final verdict] took so long,” he said.

“But that’s the way the system works sometimes.”