Posted on 01/29/2004 9:31:35 AM PST by BenLurkin
MONTEREY PARK - Harriet McClendon found closure this week, and she is working on forgiveness for the three alleged white-power followers accused of luring her 32-year-old son into a car in 1997, driving him down a secluded Palmdale road, beating and stabbing him to death and burying him in a shallow grave. McClendon also believes justice will be served in her son's 1997 killing.
"I forgive you. How God feels is another issue," Harriet said as if speaking to the suspects during a press conference at Sheriff's Headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. "Get yourself saved! Then you will not need to prove anything to anyone."
As Sheriff Leroy Baca stood at her side Wednesday, Harriet McClendon told how she believed it would have been easy for the trio of accused murders - Kelly Sorrell, now 26; Richard Ritchie, now 29; and a yet-to-be identified then-17-year-old male suspect - to lure her son Howard McClendon into their car because he was on medication for emotional problems and was very trusting.
"He was always looking for a friend," Harriet McClendon said.
But there was no friend in sight the day McClendon was beaten and stabbed to death, apparently because of the color of his skin, according to investigators.
The murder supposedly would give Sorrell the right to wear lightning bolt tattoos, which in some circles of white supremacists signifies a kill.
Prosecutors filed murder charges on Tuesday against Sorrell, Ritchie and the unidentified third male suspect for the random killing of Howard McClendon seven years ago - just because of the color of his skin and their own racial hatred.
While Harriet McClendon found her peace, Howard McClendon's brother, Robert Campbell, expressed his outrage.
"It's sad, but this is the kind of world we live in," said Campbell, of the trio. "You killed a human being. He was a son and a brother. He wasn't a dog, and you'll pay."
The brutal beating and stabbing of Howard McClendon is a crime described as "horrendous" by veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detectives, and an incident that Baca called "unconscionable."
"I don't have words to describe it," homicide Lt. Joe Hartshorne said.
Sorrell, Ritchie, and a yet-to-be identified male suspect whose name hasn't been released because he was 17 when the murder took place all have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder with the special circumstance that it was a hate crime.
Sorrell and Ritchie could face the death penalty if convicted, but prosecutors have not decided if they will seek the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole.
The unnamed suspect is not eligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time. He faces life without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors will seek to have the unnamed suspect declared unfit for juvenile prosecution so he can be tried as an adult, Deputy District Attorney Scott Millington said. The unnamed suspect will not be identified unless a judge moves his case into adult court. He is being held at Sylmar juvenile detention center where he is awaiting trial on unrelated residential burglary charges, Hartshorne said.
The murder investigation into McClendon's death hit a stone wall until early last year when homicide detectives assigned to the unsolved murders unit received a new piece of information. They worked throughout the year developing information, which eventually led them to the three suspects, Hartshorne said.
Investigators would not comment on whether they have witness statements or physical evidence that link the suspects to the crime.
All of the suspects have prior criminal records, Hartshorne said, but he was unsure how often the trio consorted before and after the alleged murder.
When asked if Ritchie and the then-17-year-old male suspect were related, Hartshorne declined to comment.
Ritchie appears to have displayed leanings toward white power ideology as early as 1996, when he allegedly set a cross on fire in the Littlerock Recreational Area. He pleaded no contest to a charge of arson in December 1996, but because the cross fire didn't target a specific person, it was not deemed a hate crime. He was sentenced to 16 months in jail, but was put back on the streets less than seven months later, when McClendon turned up missing on July 18, 1997.
On that day, investigators believe Ritchie, Kelly Sorrell and the unnamed suspect lured McClendon into their car and later killed him.
About a week later, Harriet McClendon went to the Palmdale Sheriff's Station to report that her son had not been seen or heard from since July 18. Investigators found no sign of McClendon, but on Oct. 22, a pedestrian stumbled upon human remains in a shallow grave off 35th Street East near Avenue Q.
The coroner identified the remains as McClendon's and after further testing determined that he had died from beating and stab wounds.
By the time homicide detectives were ready to present the case to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office for charges in 2004, finding two of the three suspects was easy. Ritchie is serving a sentence of 65 years in Pelican Bay prison on a slew of 1999 home invasion robberies in the Antelope Valley. Among the home-invasion spree he is convicted of committing is a 1999 Palmdale robbery in which he picked up an 11-month-old baby, pointed a gun at the infant and threatened the father for more money or he would shoot the child.
The unnamed juvenile was in Sylmar awaiting trial for recent robbery charges. Sorrell was the final piece of the puzzle, and homicide detectives enlisted the help of Lancaster Sheriff's Station personnel to find her.
"All we had was her first name," Lancaster station Sgt. Brian Schoonmaker said.
Schoonmaker, who worked the Lancaster gang detail from 1989 to 2000, dipped into the station's records and intelligence on white supremacist gangs in the area. Soon, he had Sorrell's full name and a mug shot, but no address since she was believed to be a transient. He gave a photo to TOP (target orientated policing) deputies in Lancaster and within three hours, with the help of informants, they found Sorrell at a house on Kettering Street.
"It was great police work," Schoonmaker said. "It took two weeks to ID her and less than 24 hours to find her. It's incredible. I feel very privileged to have helped in this case. I'm very happy for the family."
Harriet McClendon said the arrests do give her a sense of closure and she is working on forgiving the suspects and prays for them. She and Campbell said they don't want the death penalty for the suspects.
Harriet McClendon, who still lives in Palmdale, said she plans to attend all court proceedings.
No. The correct word is "oriented." Orientated is a barbarism, as my teachers used to say.
WTF? The crime happened seven years ago and their protecting the identity of this 24 year-old POS? Aboslutely astounding!
This guy is a mad dog. Normally I oppose the death penalty on religious grounds, but then you read about a case like this where the perps seem so deserving.
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