LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A man whose conviction and death sentence were overturned for the kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder of a woman who had been shopping at a Pasadena mall just over 36 years ago was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted again of the crime.
Ronald Anthony Jones, now 54, apologized to the family of Lois Haro shortly before his latest sentence was imposed, saying, “Sincerely I apologize … I have taken full responsibility for my actions … I’ve been waiting to apologize to you guys for decades … I mean it from the bottom of my heart.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter said she couldn’t imagine a “more horrific crime” and noted that Jones’ eyes were dry when the victim’s family members were speaking during the sentencing. The judge said he only showed emotion when he spoke to his family, who was sitting in the courtroom.
“You said, `I never made any excuses.’ …. Yes, you did,” the judge said. “So to sit here and say, `Well, I have always taken responsibility’ – – no, you have not.”
She told the defendant that he and his crime partner, George Marvin Trone Jr., “preyed on a woman who was vulnerable” and “could have just robbed her.”
Jones was convicted Oct. 7 for a second time of first-degree murder for the Oct. 18, 1988, slaying of the 26-year-old woman, who was found by Pasadena police in an isolated area near the 134 Freeway with a gunshot wound to her head.
The second jury to hear the case against Jones also found true four special circumstance allegations — murder during the commission of a rape, forcible oral copulation, kidnapping and robbery — along with an allegation that someone involved in the crime personally used a handgun.
The jury’s foreperson told the judge that the panel had deadlocked 6-6 on whether Jones had personally used a handgun during the crime.
Jones had pleaded guilty just before the trial to one count each of forcible rape while acting in concert, forcible oral copulation, kidnapping to commit robbery and second-degree robbery.
Trone, also 54, is already serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the crime.
U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton concluded in a September 2021 ruling that Jones’ first trial in 1991 was “incurably tainted by race-based discrimination” two decades earlier and found that he was entitled to a new trial. That ruling stemmed from a defense petition alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when the now-retired prosecutor in that trial used four of the prosecution’s 12 peremptory challenges to dismiss all four prospective jurors who were or appeared to be Black as Jones is.
Hunter subsequently barred the prosecution from again seeking the death penalty against Jones under the Racial Justice Act, but denied the defense’s request to reduce the murder charge to second-degree or to dismiss the special circumstance allegations.
“There is no celebration here, only relief in the verdict,” the victim’s husband, Tony Haro, said at Jones’ latest sentencing.
He said he wanted to be in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom to see that “justice prevailed” for his wife.
Haro — who has remarried since the killing and was called as the prosecution’s first witness during Jones’ retrial — noted that he has moved on with his life and a family but added that “Lois will always have a special place in my heart the rest of my life.”
Tony Haro’s second wife, Genie, said the family lights a candle to remember Lois Haro on her birthday and the day she died.
“You will die in prison as it should be,” she told the defendant. “Because of men like you, women always have to be on the alert.”
One of Tony Haro’s daughters with his second wife said in a statement read in court on her behalf that she can’t help but think of her father’s first wife when she is alone in public, while another of his daughters called her father “a hero who does not deserve to go through this again” and said that Lois Haro’s love and spirit remain indestructible.
The judge also heard from Lois Haro’s siblings, including her sister, Anna Beth, who described the terror and grief she felt as “overwhelming” as a 16-year-old when she first saw her oldest sister’s body at the mortuary. She called what happened an “unspeakable crime” against a “sister who was nothing but goodness to me.”
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, who was assigned to the case with colleague Seth Carmack after the federal court judge’s ruling, told jurors in her opening statement in Jones’ retrial that he and his crime partner had gone out “hunting” for a vulnerable woman and that there was “no way they’re going to leave her alive” after kidnapping Haro to sexually assault her, rob her and “terrorize her.”
The prosecutor noted that the two could have robbed the young woman in the underground parking garage at the now-defunct Plaza Pasadena and left her behind, but made the decision to abduct the woman, who had been on her way back to her car and repeatedly asked to be taken home.
” … She was the sole witness, the only person that could identify them,” the prosecutor said. “They decided to kill her in order to silence her.”
The deputy district attorney told jurors that Jones “could have changed the entire course of events that night,” and that he initially denied involvement in the shooting but subsequently told police in a tape-recorded interview that he had shot Haro.
Defense attorney Ilya Alekseyeff countered that Jones had “taken responsibility” for what he did and said there would be “no dispute” that his client is guilty of murder.
But he told jurors that Jones was “not the one who fired that gun.”
“… Mr. Jones was never in control,” the defense attorney said. “He never wanted any of this to happen.”
Jones’ lawyer said that “the search for the truth was over” when police got what they needed during one of their interviews with his client, telling jurors that Jones was trying to seek leniency from authorities by “simply telling them what they wanted to hear” and that he didn’t correctly describe the way the victim was positioned when she was shot.
“They want him to be the murderer, the killer, except he’s not,” Alekseyeff said in asking jurors to reject the four special circumstance allegations and both of the gun allegations.
In his rebuttal argument, Carmack told the jury that the two men didn’t attempt to conceal their identities “because they were going to kill her.” He told jurors that the defense was “trying to throw out the confession,” adding that “you heard the defendant himself confess to this murder.”
After the jury’s verdict, Jones’ three sisters hugged and apologized to Haro and other family members outside the courtroom in a gesture that the victim’s husband said he “really appreciated.”
The defendant’s sister, Antoinette, said, “We have always felt we needed to apologize, say, `We’re sorry,’ even though we were not involved.”
Another of his sisters, Latisha, said her brother “made the worst mistake of his life” and is remorseful.
The victim’s widower said Tuesday that he will never forget the moment Jones’ family approached his family in the courtroom hallway, adding that he wishes them peace.
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