LOS ANGELES -- A former top-ranked boxer, once charged with the robbery-murders of three homosexual men in the 1970s, went on trial Tuesday for allegedly beating to death one of them with his hands.
In 1983, Steve Hearon was ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Council in the super-lightweight division, prosecutors said in court documents. His professional boxing career ended when he was arrested for the three murders in 1984.
Two of the murders for which Hearon remains charged went unsolved for years until fingerprints left at the crime scenes were matched to him in 1984 with the help of the state's then-new computerized Automated Latent Print System (ALPS) in Sacramento.
Hearon, now 34, went on trial Tuesday for one of those slayings, to which he has pleaded innocent.
Prosecutor Alan Yochelson told jurors in his opening statement he will prove Hearon robbed and beat to death a homosexual man, Claude Hill, 48, with his hands in October 1978. Hill's naked body was found lying on the floor of his Gardena residence, his hands bound with electrical cord.
That slaying went unsolved until January 1984 when the Sheriff's Department processed fingerprints found at the crime scene through the ALPS system, which had only recently become operational.
Hearon was arrested in June 1984 by the FBI in Atlanta for the Hill slaying and the two other homosexual murders, and was extradited to Los Angeles.
Following the trial for the Hill slaying, Hearon will be tried for allegedly beating to death another homosexual man, William Brownell, 48, who was found slain in his Wilshire-area apartment Feb. 1, 1976.
That slaying also remained unsolved for years until fingerprints found at the crime scene were matched to Hearon with the use of the ALPS computer.
Hearon was also charged with the Jan. 15, 1976 strangulation murder of another homosexual man, Roland Craig, whose naked body was found with a lamp cord around his neck. However, that case was dismissed twice for insufficient evidence, once in 1977, and a second time last February.
If convicted of murdering Hill, Hearon would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Hearon's attorneys, Michael Adelson and Joseph Gutierrez, did not immediately give an opening statement.
