The California Supreme Court Monday upheld the death sentence of one of three men convicted of the rape and murder of a woman whose nude body was found on a freeway embankment in Long Beach more than two decades ago.
The state’s highest court unanimously rejected an appeal filed on behalf of Kevin Darnell Pearson, finding that there was “significant evidence of his active participation, including his own admissions.”
“Defendant himself ultimately made statements conceding that, when the victim attempted to flee, he helped pull her down, strip off her clothes and throw her over a fence,” Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote on behalf of the panel, with the other six justices concurring. “He acknowledged that he raped the victim while a companion held her down, repeatedly kicked her in the head and face with steel-toed boots, left her nude body by the side of the freeway, and subsequently disposed of evidence.”…