HOUSTON -- The son of a woman killed by a hitman hired through an advertisement in Soldier of Fortune magazine tearfully testified Monday he feared his imprisoned father would use the publication to have him killed.
'I was afraid because I figured if he could hire someone out of Soldier of Fortune to kill my mother, he could hire someone out of Soldier of Fortune to kill me, too,' Gary Wayne Black, 18, testified in a $22.5 million lawsuit.
Black and his grandmother filed the civil suit blaming the Boulder, Colo., publication for the death of his mother, Sandra Black, 36. She was shot twice in the head by self-described mercenary John Wayne Hearn Feb. 21, 1985, as she carried groceries into her Bryan, Texas, home.
Mrs. Black's death came a week after her husband, Robert, raised the limits on her life insurance policy. Testimony Monday also indicated Robert Black had increased a life insurance policy on his son.
Robert Black later was convicted in the murder-for-hire of his wife and sentenced to death by injection. He remains on Texas death row.
Black described his mother as 'a real understandable, kind, sweet, sensitive person.'
'She always looked after my every need. ... She just, she was the worst person to lose,' he said, breaking into tears.
Defense attorney Ray Thompson asked the young man if he had finally accepted the fact that his father killed his mother.
'It wasn't my father that pulled the trigger,' he replied.
Thompson then reworded his question to ask if Black had accepted the fact his father had his mother killed. He responded, 'It was Soldier of Fortune that gave my dad the way to do it.'
The magazine's attorneys called as witnesses Col. Charles A. Beckwith of Austin, who led the failed Delta Force mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in April 1980, and William Askins of San Antonio, a former CIA agent and retired Marine major now in the aircraft and heavy machinery brokerage business. Both said they are regular readers of the magazine, and did not think the classified ads appeared to solicit criminal behavior.
'Quite frankly, I didn't pay too much attention to them. So much of them are this macho stuff that didn't make my heart beat fast,' Beckwith said.
Askins said, 'It was widely read in certain circles of the CIA because it's a good military journal that reports on areas that other journals usually don't report on.'
Magazine attorney Bob Miller asked him if there was anything about the Hearn ad that made him suspect it was an offer soliciting anything illegal.
'No, I did not,' Miller said. 'It never occurred to me that there was any criminality intended in any ads whatsoever.'
Robert Black contacted John Wayne Hearn through a classified ad Hearn ran in Soldier of Fortune. The lawsuit contends the magazine should have known Hearn's ad clearly indicated he was willing to kill for a price.
Earlier Monday, Mrs. Black's mother, Marjorie Eimann, told jurors of the trauma her grandson went through after finding his mother's body. She said the youth began counseling shortly after his father was arrested in March 1985 and still talks with a school counselor on occasion.
Black, who found his mother's body in their home, was the last witness called by plaintiffs' attorneys.
Hearn's ad, which ran September through December 1984, read: 'Ex-Marine -- Nam vets. Weapons specialist, jungle warfare, pilot, M.E., high risk assigments in U.S. or overseas. World security group.'
Observers say the lawsuit against Soldier of Fortune is important because a ruling against the magazine could set a precedent for all magazines being held responsible for actions that occur as a result of their advertising.
Hearn was sentenced to life in prison for Mrs. Black's murder and also is serving two life terms for Florida murders.
