Killer of Tustin accountant loses death penalty appeal
Thursday, March 11, 2010
SANTA ANA – A former janitor who killed a Tustin bookkeeper over a delayed $159 paycheck in 1993 failed to convince the state Supreme Court to overturn his death sentence today.
An Orange County jury convicted Jonathan Daniel D’Arcy of first-degree murder with special circumstance allegations of torture and mayhem on Dec. 12, 1996. The same jury deadlocked in the penalty phase, but another panel ultimately recommended a death sentence, which was upheld by a judge on April 4, 1997.
D’Arcy’s attorneys appealed the death sentence on several fronts, from the use of photographs of the victim’s charred body during the penalty phase to issues revolving around his ability to act as a co-counsel before trial.
The high court found the pictures were properly used during the trial and could not unduly prejudice the jury during the penalty phase since D’Arcy had already been found guilty of the crime.
The attorneys also challenged the death penalty itself. But the state’s high court, in an opinion penned by Justice Carlos R. Moreno, rejected all of those appeals, saying they have been litigated before.
D’Arcy was a down-on-his-luck janitor who had a troubled upbringing that included his mother once forcing him to eat his own feces because he soiled his pants, according to the opinion.
D’Arcy had borrowed money to get janitorial jobs as an independent contractor, but by January 1993 had lost all but two accounts.
On Feb. 2, 1993, he and a co-worker stopped by a gas station, where D’Arcy bought a dollar’s worth of fuel and poured it into a sport bottle. They drove over to where bookkeeper Karen Laborde worked and D’Arcy stormed into her office and doused her with gasoline.
He hollered, “This is what you get when you hold my (expletive) money!” before setting her on fire with a lighter, according to the opinion.
D’Arcy calmly smoked a cigarette and waited for police, telling his arresting officer, “I’m the one you are here to arrest.”
Laborde gave a death-bed declaration to an officer.
Before going to trial, D’Arcy rejected two attorneys appointed to represent him because they sought to put up some sort of an insanity defense.
D’Arcy preferred to pursue a defense that he claimed would show a heater fan on Laborde’s desk sparked the fire, not D’Arcy’s lighter, according to Moreno’s ruling.
Various experts who evaluated D’Arcy diagnosed him with multiple mental health issues ranging from schizophrenia to anti-social personality disorder, but he was ultimately found fit to stand trial.
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