Repeat murderer gets life without parole

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1998 | 10:45 a.m.

Fred Willis was an exemplary prisoner for the 11 years he was behind bars for the rape and slaying of a casino cigarette girl in 1984.

When he became eligible for parole, he pleaded to the state Parole Board that he deserved a chance to be free, and in 1995 the board members took a chance on him.

They were wrong.

In June 1997, the partially nude body of a prostitute was found in an alley near Desert Inn Road and Valley View Boulevard with the strap from her own dress wrapped tightly around her neck.

Willis, 47, eventually admitted that Zabrina Seaborn, a Coast Guard veteran from Long Beach, Calif., who came to Las Vegas to work as an exotic dancer, was another of his victims. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

On Tuesday, he was sentenced to what District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski said was the only sentence Willis deserved: life in prison without the possibility of parole.

No more parole boards. No more chances.

Willis sat in court with his head bowed during much of the sentencing hearing and declined to speak in his own behalf, neither asking for leniency nor apologizing to the family members of his victim who were present in court.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon argued that Willis forfeited any more chances for freedom when he killed his second victim.

"One life is too many, and two lives certainly are too many," Guymon told the judge.

Willis became a suspect in the Seaborn killing because a security camera at Harrah's casino captured him with the woman the night before she was murdered. Willis acknowledged that he had been with her, but he originally denied any involvement in her death until he was faced with the possibility that his own life could be on the line.

Willis had been scheduled to stand trial Sept. 14, but chose to plea-bargain his case rather than face a jury that would have had the option of giving him the death penalty. In the deal, the death penalty was dropped as a possible punishment.

In arguing for a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years, Deputy Special Public Defender Dayvid Figler conceded that even if such a sentence were given, Willis wouldn't be eligible for release until he was 70.

He added that even then, there would be only an outside chance parole would ever be granted, but dangling that "ray of hope" would motivate Willis to continue being a model prisoner.

Figler described Willis in court as "a person who can function in that horrible, horrible world (of prison)" and acknowledged that "as we look at him today, he belongs in prison."

But he said that could change in 20 years.

Pavlikowski didn't agree, giving him the harshest sentence possible and ordering it to run consecutively with the life sentence with the possibility of parole that he again is serving in the 1984 murder. His parole was revoked in that case as a result of Seaborn's murder.

In the 1984 slaying of 25-year-old casino employee Bonnie Ann Woods, Willis had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and sexual assault in a deal that made parole possible after 10 years were served.