Prosecutors Allege That Man Killed 3 Family Members Out of Hatred

VAN NUYS — Oliver Leroy Vann hated his family--so much that he “hunted them down and killed them,” shooting his wife, stepson and stepson’s wife point-blank with a .22-caliber rifle, a prosecutor argued Friday as Vann’s triple-murder trial drew to a close in Van Nuys Superior Court.

The 44-year-old Lake Los Angeles man was so filled with loathing that he talked openly about killing family members with several friends and neighbors, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Payne told the 10 men and two women on Vann’s jury.

Defense attorney John Ponist said his client, beset by “layer upon layer of personal and financial problems,” was merely “venting” his frustrations by telling others he’d like to kill his wife and stepson. “He didn’t really mean it,” Ponist said.

But the prosecutor contends Vann followed up his murderous talk with violent deeds on Nov. 15, 1991.

He had “methodically” planned the killings, said Payne, who claimed Vann bought a rifle and practiced shooting with it. Then Vann allegedly made good on his threat after a particularly virulent family argument over who should pay the water and cable-TV bills.

He shot his wife, Marie Antoinette Vann, 52, and her daughter-in-law, Muriel T. Johnson, 40, in the head as the women cowered under a dining room table, Payne told jurors. Then Vann turned the .22-caliber rifle he’d bought a few months earlier on his 30-year-old stepson, Ronald T. Johnson, shooting the fleeing man in the back as Johnson crashed through a plate glass window and ran into the back yard of the family’s house in Lake Los Angeles.

“I would consider those executions,” Payne said, asking the jury to convict Vann of first-degree murder. “Some bills weren’t paid. That was no excuse to kill them.”

The prosecutor said Vann hated his wife because she nagged him and spent too much money. He resented Muriel Johnson because she made more money as a paralegal than he made at K mart, prosecutors said, adding that Ronald Johnson and Vann almost came to blows during a family argument.

But the defense claims hatred had nothing to do with the killings. Ponist said Vann snapped after months of living in “a powder-keg situation.” He asked jurors to return a verdict of involuntary manslaughter.

Vann had always been brow-beaten by his wife, the defense attorney said. But his home life grew particularly tense when the Vanns both lost their jobs. He was laid off at Teledyne, Ponist said. Without anyone to car-pool with, she could no longer work as a nurse. He began working at a Palmdale K mart, at a considerable pay cut. Money, always tight, was a constant pressure. The bank began foreclosure of the Vanns’ home in the 41000 block of 168th Street East, Ponist said.

To share expenses, the Vanns invited the Johnsons and their four children to move in. But, Ponist said, the Johnsons didn’t carry their share of the financial load and Vann resented them. “He began to feel abused by Ronald,” Ponist said.

The final straw came when a second stepson moved into the house and began having a love affair with the Johnsons’ oldest daughter, the defense attorney said. Vann disapproved of the relationship, which he considered “incestuous,” Ponist told jurors.

Vann was arrested about five hours after the killings when he ran his powder blue Mercedes-Benz into the back of a tractor trailer and slid 20 feet down an embankment off Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County.

Later, while being questioned by Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide investigators, Vann talked about his future, prosecutor Payne said. “He said he’d spend 25 years in prison, then become a street person.”

But if the jury finds Vann guilty of multiple murders, he’s likely to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury is expected to begin deliberations next week.