Slayings suspect's confession will stand

Eighteen-year-old Sikia Lafayette Smith, one of three teenagers charged in the robbery and execution slayings of four men over a couple of hundred dollars last summer, has lost his courtroom bid to have his confession to police ruled inadmissible.

The ruling leaves the possibility of the death penalty for Smith if he is convicted of murder at his April 26 trial.

But it also may signal the possibility that his case could end in a plea bargain as soon as Friday, when Smith is scheduled to return to District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski's courtroom.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys said such a deal could occur because Smith is not believed to be the gunman who executed the four in August 1998 after turning up the volume on a stereo to hide the noise of the shots.

A plea bargain may require a sentence that would ensure a life in prison and Smith's testimony against the two other defendants in the case.

After a brief hearing Wednesday, Pavlikowski ruled that Smith apparently understood his constitutional right to remain silent when he gave a tape-recorded statement to police after his arrest.

Smith read the required Miranda warning aloud from a card provided by police, Metro Homicide Detective James Buczek testified.

But defense attorneys Pete Christiansen Jr. and Tony Sgro argued that Smith has only a seventh-grade education and may not have comprehended what he was reading. They added that Smith's waiver of his rights was not part of the tape recording.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas countered that there is no legal requirement that a defendant's consent to speak to police be recorded, and the judge agreed.

The trial for the second defendant in the case, 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young, is set for June 21. Police have said that he also gave a statement admitting his involvement in the quadruple murder.

A July 6 trial is set for the third defendant, Donte Johnson, 19, who prosecutors have said was the triggerman.

The four victims, who were bound with duct tape and shot in the head, were Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, Matthew Mowen, 19, and Peter Talamantez, 17.

Smith and Young said they were told by a fourth man who is not charged that perhaps $6,000 in cash and a quantity of drugs were in the home at 4825 Terra Linda Ave., near Tropicana Avenue and Nellis Boulevard.

But the defendants told police that only $240 in cash was found.

According to the statements of Smith and Young, the four were killed because they knew Johnson and the fourth man, and the victims might have retaliated for the robbery if allowed to live.

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