Prosecutor Paints 'Sadistic' Picture of Marines Accused of Killing Sergeant, Wife

Four Marines accused of killing a young sergeant and his bride engaged in a kind of "sadistic creativity" as they humiliated and tortured the couple during a home invasion robbery at their French Valley residence, a prosecutor said today.

"This callous, cruel crime did not happen quickly," Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Daniel DeLimon said in his closing statement. "This was about the enjoyment of the entire experience for these four men. Sure, stealing valuables was part of it. But it certainly was not all of it."

DeLimon pieced together for jurors the details that he said led up to and followed the Oct. 15, 2008, slayings of 24-year-old Janek Pietrzak and his 26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak.

The prosecutor called the accused killers -- Kevin Darnell Cox, 25, Emrys Justin John, 23, Tyrone Miller, 25, and Kesaun Kedron Sykes, 25 -- "Marines by day and criminals by night."

The men carried out a home-invasion robbery in the San Diego area less than a month before the deadly assaults on the Pietrzaks, the prosecutor said.

"They gained experience," DeLimon said, adding that the defendants relished "exercising complete control over their victims."

According to DeLimon, the four Marines probably spent several days preparing for the raid on the Pietrzaks' two-story house at 31319 Bermuda Ave., deciding what guns to bring along, how to access the property and what "contingencies" to be prepared for.

The defendants were undoubtedly motivated by the idea of stealing jewelry and other possessions, DeLimon said.

"Profit was part of it. But was this really just about dollars and cents?" he said. "No. This was about having the power to see the fear in somebody's eyes. It's about taking pleasure in the sexual humiliation of a woman and tormenting her husband by making him watch."

DeLimon quoted one of the defendants as referring to the 90-minute ransacking of the victims' property and abuse of the couple as "party time."

"The extent to which they could prolong the suffering of this husband and wife, married for just 68 days, was limited only by the defendants' sadistic creativity," the prosecutor said.

His closing statement was geared specifically to Cox, whose case was severed from his co-defendants, permitting him to have a separate jury.

According to DeLimon, Cox attempted to minimize his participation in the slayings. But the statements he made to friends afterward and the testimony of Miller revealed that Cox was an active perpetrator, according to the prosecutor.

He alleged that Cox helped pummel Pietrzak and was delegated with the responsibility of binding the couple to immobilize and silence them. Cox also planted false evidence in an attempt to throw off authorities, directing his associates where to paint epithets such as the "n" word to make it appear as though the crime was racially motivated, according to DeLimon.

Quiana was black, and her husband, a native of Poland, white.

Cox's attorney, Ryan Markson, argued that his client was a mere follower and went into the crime not realizing what he was getting into.

"Kevin only wanted to survive what was occurring," Markson told jurors. "He did not want to rob, rape or murder anybody."

The attorney said the prosecution was stretching in making Cox -- a buck private in the Marines -- appear sophisticated enough to think up the bogus racial component of the crime and the need to light the house on fire.

"This was not about what Kevin Cox wanted; this was about Tyrone Miller wanting that extra stripe and being told by Sgt. Pietrzak that he wasn't going to get it," Markson said, referring to a conversation between Miller and Pietrzak the day before the killings.

Miller testified that he was displeased with Pietrzak because the sergeant had told the lance corporal that his chances of being promoted to corporal were nil.

"Stripes mean everything in the Marine Corps," Markson said.

The attorney said when Miller took the stand, he did everything he could to deflect blame from himself and put it on his co-defendants, mainly Cox.

"He's got Kevin in the thick of it," Markson said. "But if all of what he claims happened, why is there not a modicum of trace evidence linking Kevin to any of these things? Miller's DNA is on the bandanas, on the shell casings -- he's got Janek's dress blue uniform in his closet! Why is there nothing of anything of Kevin's to be found? Because he's not a major participant."

Cox told investigators that he rang the doorbell twice shortly after 1 a.m., and Pietrzak came downstairs in a T-shirt and boxer shorts.

According to DeLimon, Pietrzak was armed with a knife when he deactivated his house alarm and opened the door. The defendants, armed with shotguns, beat the young sergeant into submission, DeLimon alleged.

The men ransacked the home, packing stolen items into suitcases and loading them into John's Jeep Cherokee, according to the prosecution.

According to DeLimon, Miller and Sykes stripped the helpless woman and used a vibrator they found in the couple's bathroom to violate her sexually.

Miller allegedly ordered John to execute the victims using a 9mm Beretta handgun, which he did, shooting each of them twice in the head, using cushions to suppress the gunfire, according to DeLimon.

Closing statements for John and Miller are slated for tomorrow. Sykes will be tried in August.    

The defendants could face the death penalty if convicted of first- degree murder and special circumstance allegations of killing during the course of a robbery and taking multiple lives in the same crime.

—City News Service