The Deputy District Attorney prosecuting a National Guard soldier for the late-summer murder of Joanne Crystal Harris at the Culver City Armory announced this morning he had filed an additional “special circumstances” charge.
In one of today’s two major developments in the homicide, this will change everything for Sgt. Scott Alan Ansman if he is found guilty.
Because Ms. Harris, 29, the married Guardsman’s months-long girlfriend was six months pregnant when she was killed on the afternoon of Aug. 24, Deputy D.A. Joe Marcus said Mr. Ansman now stands accused of the additional murder of the unborn fetus.
Vindication
Outside the courtroom where the announcement was made, Gerald Bennett, Ms. Harris’s only and older brother, was openly pleased.
He even felt vindicated. “I would attribute the new charge to family pressure,” he said. For close to 3 1/2 months, Mr. Bennett has been campaigning to have the baby Ms. Harris was carrying included in the charges.
Fewer Choices
If convicted, Mr. Ansman’s narrowed options are considerably more bleak than when he was accused of a single homicide.
Life in prison without possibility of parole and a death sentence would be the only choices for a jury, Mr. Marcus told the newspaper.
At the request of Mr. Marcus at a courthouse hearing this morning, given the new count, Judge Scott T. Millington revoked Mr. Ansman’s $1 million bail and denied him bail at any price.
As usual, at his latest two-minute courtroom appearance where his preliminary hearing was scheduled for Jan. 31, Mr. Ansman’s mother and brother observed the proceedings closely and noiselessly.
Only a Fleeting Glance
When the shackled son and brother was led into the courtroom, he glanced in their direction in the second row without the smallest trace of recognition.
A posted sign warns spectators against speaking to prisoners.
Mother and brother stared right back, without a sound or a word to each other.
A Look at the Guardsman
Physically, Mr. Ansman fits every description applicable to “ordinary.”
Medium tall, his plain brown hair is crewcut-short but not severely so. His vaguely freckled face probably never would be noticed in a crowd. His build could be called slight.
The Guardsman has been incarcerated since the Friday afternoon when the jubilant community-wide celebration of Fiesta La Ballona was preparing to open within sight of the Armory.
A Bombshell?
Mr. Ansman is accused of employing several different methods to brutally murder Ms. Harris for reasons still undisclosed. Police said he was mopping up the residue around the gymnasium floor at the Armory when they arrested him without resistance.
Meanwhile, the newspaper has learned that defense attorneys have found what they consider a bombshell that could drastically alter their case.
