Trial starts in skinhead 'execution'of gay student

LOS ANGELES - A Southern California teen driven by white-supremacist beliefs executed a gay classmate at a junior high school with two gunshots to the back of his head, a prosecutor told jurors yesterday in her opening statement.

Maeve Fox, Ventura County deputy district attorney, said that defendant Brandon McInerney acted on the white-supremacist philosophy that homosexuality is an abomination.

However, defense attorney Scott Wippert countered that McInerney had reached an emotional breaking point over unwanted sexual advances by 15-year-old victim Larry King and should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

"He did this out of heat of passion," Wippert said. "These were two troubled young men, and this was a tragedy."

McInerney is being tried as an adult in the February 2008 slaying in Oxnard.

Fox told the nine-woman, three-man jury that McInerney smuggled a .22-caliber handgun into the school and sat behind King, who was at a computer station.

McInerney shot King once then stood up and made eye contact with others in the classroom before firing another round with the gun only inches from the victim's head, Fox said. He then dropped the gun and walked from the room, she said.

"The evidence in this case will prove to you that this killing was an execution," Fox said.

McInerney, 14 at the time of the shooting, pleaded not guilty to murder, to lying in wait and to a hate crime. He could face up to life in prison if convicted.

The case was moved to Los Angeles County for trial after many delays.

King's death has roiled gay-rights advocates and parents in Oxnard, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles. They wondered why officials at E.O. Green Junior High School hadn't done more to stop the harassment of King by students, including McInerney.

Fox told jurors that there won't be any evidence during trial about King's sexual orientation, although in the weeks leading to the shooting the teen wore makeup and high-heeled boots, and told a teacher that he wanted to change his name to Leticia.

Jurors will hear from students who will testify about the rocky relationship between the two boys. Among them, Fox said, will be one of McInerney's friends, who said that he heard King tell the defendant, "I love you, baby" the day before the shooting.

McInerney made several references that same day that he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot King or was going to hurt him, Fox added.

McInerney, dressed in a blue striped shirt and tan pants, sat in court and remained expressionless as both attorneys addressed jurors. He was lean and tall and sported a full head of chestnut- brown hair - far different from his mug shot taken after his arrest that showed him with a nearly shaved head.

Police found Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in McInerney's backpack the day of the shooting, as well as a wealth of Nazi-inspired drawings and artifacts at the family house, Fox said.