Douglas Gordon : California man guilty in 1979 murder of nurse

A Costa Mesa man was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in the 1979 slaying of a Torrance nurse that he dated earlier that year.

According to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, 62-year-old Douglas Gordon Bradford was convicted by a jury that deliberated for less than three days to reach a guilty verdict.

A jury of seven men and five women deliberated just more than two days in Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles before reaching its verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. The trial before Judge Curtis Rappe lasted about six weeks.

Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, who prosecuted the case and called Bradford a “monster” during his closing argument, said justice was long overdue for Bradford, a Costa Mesa resident who went on to become an engineer.

“These are complicated, difficult cases and sometimes they are not quick,” Lewin said. “It might have taken 35 years, but, in the end, the right person is going to prison and hopefully, that’s the last we are going to hear from Douglas Bradford.”

Bradford showed no emotion as he learned his fate, Lewin said. Out on bail since his arrest five years ago, Bradford was taken immediately to jail.

Torrance police detectives always suspected Bradford, a Cal State Long Beach engineering student at the time, in the killing. But prosecutors in the early 1980s rejected filing charges because of a lack of evidence. Although no DNA was found in the case, Torrance detectives reopened it in the early 2000s.

Bradford was arrested on May 13, 2009.

Bradford and Knight had met while skiing. They dated for about two months, and then Knight broke up with him. She told her sister he was much more serious about the relationship than she was.

Bradford, prosecutors said, planned the slaying, crafting a homemade garrote out of wood pieces and picture-hanging wire. He stalked Knight while she dated other men and entered her apartment on Aug. 29, 1979. Knight shrieked for help as Bradford’s garrote sliced through her neck. The air flowing through the gash allowed her to breathe, prosecutors said, so Knight’s killer straddled her body and stabbed her, mutilating a breast and cutting through an artery in her thigh. The garrote was found under her body.

During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony that revealed how angry Bradford was after the couple broke up, and how he was spotted driving past her rented home at Anza Avenue near Torrance Boulevard. One night he burst into her home while she was dating another man, threw a lamp at her and called her a whore. A neighbor saw Bradford’s orange 280Z speed away from her apartment that night and later saw him driving along her street, seemingly stalking her in the days before the slaying.

Knight’s body was found days before she was to be her sister’s maid of honor at her wedding in Canada.

When detectives interviewed Bradford in 1979, he claimed he went sailing that night

Police detectives also discovered that the wire used to choke Knight was the same kind Bradford’s mother, an amateur artist, used to hang paintings in her home in 1979. The paintings were still on the walls. The wood used to make the garrote was used as door and window jams in her house.

Bradford’s attorney, Robert Shapiro of O.J. Simpson case fame, told jurors in his closing argument last week that the prosecution failed to prove its case and that “Doug Bradford is an innocent man.”

He questioned whether the wire found on Bradford’s mother’s paintings existed in 1979 and said that prosecutors had not collected any evidence for a conviction.

“This is unequivocally the worst investigation … the worst collection of evidence that I’ve ever seen,’’ Shapiro said.

Shapiro was on vacation in Hawaii on Thursday and unavailable for comment, prosecutors said.

Knight moved from Ontario, Canada, months before her death to enjoy the Southern California lifestyle. She worked at Little Company of Mary Hospital in capacities that included assisting newborns.

Knight’s sister, Donna Knight Wigmore, and her father, Clair Knight, who both live in Ontario, Canada, attended the trial.

“As he goes to jail, we get out of jail,’’ Wigmore said. “We’re just ecstatic. Lynne can finally rest now.”

Torrance Police Chief Mark Matsuda said it is important for his department to revisit cold case homicides. He said the department stands with the Knight family following the murder conviction.

“We sincerely hope that this verdict brings a moment of comfort and closure to Lynne’s family as they continue to cope with the loss of their loved one,” Matsuda said.

Following the killing, Bradford eventually married, split from his wife and lived with another woman for 13 years. He has no children.

Agencies/Canadajournal