Teen to go on trial in June for murder

A June 14 trial date has been set for one of three teenagers charged in the robbery/execution-style slayings of four men last August.

However, District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski was asked Tuesday for a second time to consider a motion to have ruled as inadmissible a confession Sikia Lafayette Smith, 18, gave to Metro Police about the killings.

Pavlikowski said he would to rule on the request later this week.

The Smith trial had been set to start Monday. The trial for the second defendant in the case, 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young, is set for June 21. A July 6 trial is set for the third defendant, Donte Johnson, 19, who prosecutors have alleged was the triggerman.

Police have said Young also gave a statement to police admitting his involvement in the quadruple murder.

The teenagers could get the death penalty if convicted. Other options could be life sentences with or without the possibility of parole.

Four men -- Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, Matthew Mowen, 19, and Peter Talamantez, 17 -- died in the August 1998 execution-style slaying. They had been bound with duct tape and shot in their heads.

At Tuesday's hearing defense attorney Tony Sgro argued that because Smith already had an attorney in relation to drug charges to which he had pleaded guilty, police should have attempted to contact his lawyer before getting the taped confession.

At a prior hearing Pavlikowski ruled that Smith apparently understood his constitutional right to remain silent when he gave his tape-recorded statement to police. Sgro had argued before that ruling that Smith, who had a seventh-grade education, did not understand what he read.

In their confessions, Smith and Young reportedly stated that they were told by a fourth man who is not charged in the crime that $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 might have retaliated for the robbery.

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