Teenager Sentenced in Death of Watts Woman

A 15-year-old youth was committed to the California Youth Authority on Friday for the 1996 slaying of Watts grandmother Viola McClain, the attempted murder of her grandson and another shooting death inside the Nickerson Gardens housing project.

As required by state law, Juvenile Court Judge Cecil Mills committed the boy to the same sentence he would have received if he had been convicted as an adult--three life terms plus 30 years for the use of a handgun in each incident.

Under the law, however, the teenager will be released at the age of 25 unless the state’s Youthful Offender Parole Board takes the unusual step of obtaining a new court order declaring that the youth should remain incarcerated as a danger to society. (It is the policy of The Times not to publish the names of youths tried as juveniles.)

The teenager was recently found by Mills to have shot and killed McClain after firing at her grandson during an argument July 26, 1996.

The fight, authorities say, began when McClain’s grandson confronted a group of youths about their attempt to set ablaze an abandoned house next to the one on 111th Street where McClain, 82, had lived for more than half a century. The attempted arson, according to Los Angeles police and the district attorney’s office, was aimed at destroying the location where a 13-year-old girl had just been gang-raped.

Although the 15-year-old was never accused in the rape, authorities charged that he drew a revolver during the argument with McClain’s grandson and in attempting to shoot him, killed the popular Watts grandmother.

In addition, the teenager was found guilty of murdering Patrick Birdsong, 24, inside the Nickerson Gardens housing project two weeks before McClain’s slaying.

“He’s a gang member. He’s a predator. He has disregard for human life,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lynn Hobbs said.

But a defense attorney continued to maintain that the case was built on the slimmest of circumstantial evidence. “I’m very mindful of the gravity of the charge,” said attorney Kenneth Aid, “[but] the evidence was, at best, tenuous.”

Outside court, the youth’s mother continued to insist that her son was convicted because of the high-profile nature of McClain’s slaying. “They are making an example of my son,” she said. “My son was innocent.”