Tense Death Row Holds 7 From County : * Murder: The unusual cruelty of their crimes has brought them to San Quentin’s most fearsome ward. One or more may be executed within five years, authorities say.

Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz, a quiet man with an explosive temper and a fascination for voodoo, was sentenced to death 12 years ago after murdering his third wife and later killing his fifth wife and her teen-age son.

Robert Cruz McLain, a stoic man with a long history of sex crimes, was sent to Death Row one year later for raping and fatally shooting a young hitchhiker, then dumping her body in a trash can at a park near Santa Paula.

And Theodore Francis Frank, who expressed delight in torturing children, was ordered to face execution five years ago for the brutal kidnap-murder of 2 1/2-year-old Amy Sue Seitz.

Those three convicted killers are among the seven men from Ventura County who are still waiting on San Quentin’s Death Row as an increasingly unsympathetic court system slowly moves them closer to a date with the gas chamber.

State authorities say it is possible that at least one of the seven will be led into the steel-walled room at San Quentin and put to death in the next three to five years. Double murderer Robert Alton Harris was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday until a federal judge in San Francisco granted him a 10-day stay on Saturday.

The inmates--ranging in age from 23 to 57--have been described by prosecutors as the worst killers in Ventura County history. Their crimes were not only grisly but cold, calculated and sadistic, authorities say. Their victims were almost all women and children.

In addition to Ruiz, McLain and Frank, there are four others whose journey to Death Row began in the courtrooms of the Ventura County Hall of Justice.

In 1988, Curtis Fauber was convicted of killing an Oxnard Shores businessman with the blunt end of an ax. About the same time, Tracy Cain was found guilty of using a child’s rocking chair to bludgeon to death a retired couple at their Oxnard home.

Two years ago, Larry David Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of a former county beauty queen who was found raped and strangled at the San Buenaventura Golf Course.

And just last week, Gregory Scott Smith was transferred from the Ventura County Jail to San Quentin to await execution for kidnaping, raping and strangling an 8-year-old Northridge boy and setting his body on fire near Simi Valley.

“It’s cruelty and meanness that distinguishes all of these cases,” said Peter D. Kossoris, a Ventura County deputy district attorney who has successfully prosecuted three of the Death Row cases. “They go beyond the usual murderers who do it on impulse.”

Ruiz, McLain and Frank are involved in a lengthy appeals process that could end in three to five years. The rest of the inmates have just started negotiating the legal maze as attorneys fight to save their lives--a battle that is becoming more difficult to win.

“For those of us who grew up in a period when we were moving further and further away from the death penalty, this is very disconcerting,” said attorney James Larson of San Francisco, who is representing Ruiz. “Things are back to where they were. In some ways, they are much worse.”

Although none of the Ventura County Death Row inmates have execution dates, that may change Monday if a U.S. District Court judge in Santa Ana accepts a request by the state to reschedule Frank’s execution date.

The inmates know that Harris is scheduled to die--and most are frightened by it, Larson said.

“There is a great deal of fear and agitation at this point,” he said.

Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz

Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz, 54, a former Piru ranch hand, was the first person in Ventura County to receive the death sentence after it was reinstated by California voters in 1978.

Ruiz was a believer in voodoo.

His third wife, Tanya Staats, was mildly retarded from a childhood car accident, which ripped a gaping hole in the side of her head.

When Ruiz married her in 1972, her parents--who ran the Ranch House Cafe in Castaic--thought he was the best thing that ever happened to their daughter. Once a bashful, sickly child, Staats came out of her shell with Ruiz.

But Ruiz began to show a frightening side. He would leave his wife for weeks at a time. And when he returned, the two would get into fights so terrible that the police were called.

Then, in August, 1975, after the couple settled near Piru, Staats, 24, disappeared. Ruiz told police that his wife had left him and he didn’t know where she could be found.

Although police were suspicious of Ruiz, they turned up no clues and dropped the case--until three years later, when Ruiz’s fifth wife and her 14-year-old son, Tony Mitchell, were found dead.

Pauline Wachs, a Jewish woman from Paris, had long before managed to escape the Nazis by hiding out with Catholic nuns in the French countryside before immigrating to the United States as a teen-ager.

Shortly after she and Ruiz were married, she told friends that he beat her. Once, after a fight, Pauline allegedly warned a friend: “If either Tony or myself or both of us turn up missing, raise hell with the police because we will be dead.”

The two did, in fact, disappear. They were found in a shallow grave in the back yard of their home near Piru, both shot through the backs of their heads.

Also in the grave was a small figurine, which investigators described as a voodoo doll, with a pin stuck through it.

Witnesses testified that Ruiz was into “psychic stuff” and believed his parents had a spell on him.

The jury convicted Ruiz of first-degree murder in 1980 for the deaths of Wachs and her son. Although Staats’ body was never found, the jury found enough similarities in her disappearance to convict Ruiz of second-degree murder. Two days later, the same jury sentenced Ruiz to death.

Since his arrest in 1979, Ruiz has maintained his innocence. Larson, his court-appointed attorney, said doctors at San Quentin have diagnosed Ruiz as schizophrenic.

“Someone who has psychiatric problems may have a different view of the world,” Larson said. “That should have been raised during the penalty phase, but was not.”

Larson has filed his concerns in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, but a hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Robert Cruz McLain

The case against Robert Cruz McLain, 52, dates back to when he was a teen-ager. He had a history of sexually assaulting young girls.

According to court documents, he raped a 3 1/2-year-old girl when he was 13. He was diagnosed as a “sexual psychopath” and sent to Atascadero State Hospital.

But he was soon declared cured and allowed to return to Ventura, said prosecutor Kossoris. In the years that followed, McLain was arrested and convicted of a dozen crimes of various kinds and became known to Ventura police as “The Psycho.”

It was the summer of 1971--at the age of 31--when McLain came across two 11-year-old girls in Cemetery Park.

McLain raped them at gunpoint, then warned them that if they told what had happened, he would kill them, according to court records.

But the children did tell their parents, who called the police. McLain was caught. On the strong testimony of one of the victims, he was sent to prison.

Seven years later, McLain was released. He returned to Ventura in 1979 to find the girl--then 19--who had testified against him.

McLain, his nephew and a friend tracked down the address of the girl, who had moved into her own apartment.

The threesome staked out the apartment and waited for the girl to return home. At one point they tried to break in, but were scared away by a noise, the jury was told.

According to the testimony of Lloyd Ketcherside, a friend of McLain’s nephew, they left the apartment and went cruising around Ventura. That’s when they decided to pick up Joni Donnell Kelley, 20, who was hitchhiking.

Ketcherside testified that he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen and asked McLain and McLain’s nephew, Theodore Willis, 18, to drop him off at the beach. When they returned to pick him up, Kelley was gone, Ketcherside testified.

He said McLain and Willis told him they had raped her and killed her. McLain said, “It had to be done,” Ketcherside told the jury.

Kelley’s body was found in a trash dumpster at Toland Park near Santa Paula. She was shot in the head three times.

The men then drove to Solano County, where McLain and Willis kidnaped and killed a 31-year-old woman, raping and strangling her and slitting her throat, a jury found. They took her car and were later caught.

Willis received life in prison for the crimes. McLain received the death penalty for the murder of Kelley.

His attorney, Robin Shapiro of Sacramento, argues that too much credibility was given to Ketcherside’s testimony. He suggests that Ketcherside was lying. McLain maintains his innocence.

“The deck was stacked against him from the onset,” Shapiro said. The case is pending in U.S District Court in Los Angeles.

Theodore Francis Frank

Investigators were stunned by the brutal killing of 2 1/2-year-old Amy Sue Seitz in 1978. The crime, they said, was unthinkably cruel.

Evidence indicated that the girl had been kidnaped from the front yard of her baby-sitter’s house in Camarillo, bound hand and foot, forced to drink beer and then raped, tortured and mutilated with locking pliers before she was strangled.

Her body was dumped in a drainage ditch in Topanga Canyon.

Theodore Francis Frank, 57, was arrested several months later, after he molested an 8-year-old girl in Panorama City. He was then linked to the Seitz slaying and the molestation of another small girl.

Like McLain, Frank had a history of molesting children and had also been confined to Atascadero State Hospital.

He admitted to authorities that he had assaulted 100 to 150 children of various ages over a 20-year period, and even boasted that he “knew how to manipulate the system” to get himself released as cured.

In 1979, the high-profile trial was held in Orange County after a change of venue. Frank was convicted of the murder and sentenced to die in the gas chamber.

In 1985, the California Supreme Court upheld Frank’s conviction, but voted 4 to 2 to reverse the death sentence. The justices found that police had improperly seized a diary that later was cited to jurors in the prosecution’s demand for a death sentence.

The writings, made by Frank when he was hospitalized years before the murder, included a passage that read: “I want to give pain to these little children. I want to molest them. I want to be sadistic. I want to harm them.”

A new penalty trial was held in 1987--this time without evidence from the diary--and an Orange County jury again returned a verdict of death.

Curtis Fauber

Curtis Fauber was sentenced to death in May, 1988, in a murder case that revolved around drugs and money.

Two years earlier, Fauber and a friend, Brian Buckley, decided to rob Tom Urell, a business executive for a construction company who had been selling them drugs.

They went to the man’s Oxnard Shores home and sneaked in through a window left open for Urell’s cat, said prosecutor Donald Glynn.

“They had it in their minds that there were cocaine or money in there,” Glynn said. “They found Urell asleep in bed, and proceeded to tie him up with duct tape.”

When they were ransacking the house looking for money, Fauber found an ax, Glynn said.

And even though the businessman pleaded with Fauber not to hurt him, Fauber “ended up whacking Urell once or twice on the back of the head with the blunt end,” killing him, Glynn said. “It was totally unnecessary. . . . He did it for fun.”

Fauber received the death penalty. Buckley, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was sentenced to 15 years in prison--a fact that bothered Fauber’s defense attorney, James M. Farley.

“Curtis received the death penalty while his co-defendant got a free ride,” Farley said. “It just shows the whim and caprice that is utilized by our prosecutors in deciding who dies and who doesn’t. They’re playing God. It seems unfair.”

The state Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing oral arguments on Fauber’s appeal on May 4.

Tracy Cain

Cocaine and money were also prominent in the case against Tracy Cain, 29, who was arrested in 1986 for bludgeoning his next-door neighbors to death.

According to court documents, Cain had been having a cocaine party late one night and had run out of money to buy drugs.

William and Modena Galloway were a retired couple who lived on Tulare Place in Oxnard. Everyone on the block knew that William Galloway, 63, kept a lot of money in his house. He was an old-fashioned man from Oklahoma and didn’t believe in banks.

Cain decided to break in and take the booty Galloway had stashed away, the jury was told.

Cain and one of his buddies pulled up a corner of Galloway’s garage door and crept inside. Cain--who was so powerful he looked like he could “bench press a Buick”--then kicked in the door leading into the couple’s house, prosecutor Richard E. Holmes said.

“Mr. Galloway got up because he heard noises,” Holmes said.

Cain grabbed a little rocking chair that belonged to the Galloways’ grandchildren and proceeded to beat the man with it, crushing his face and skull. “He was totally unrecognizable,” Holmes said.

Cain then walked down the hall and proceeded to bludgeon Modena Galloway to death with the chair. He then left with the couple’s money, jurors were told.

The Galloways were found the next day by family members who had stopped by to visit.

“It was the nightmare of every elderly person,” Holmes said. “It was a horror story.”

Police had few clues as to suspects until they received a tip that Cain was the culprit. He was arrested after spending the Galloways’ money on cassette tapes, a new stereo and clothes, Holmes said.

In July, 1988, a jury decided that Cain should be executed. His appeal is still pending in state Supreme Court.

His court-appointed attorney, Willard Norberg of San Francisco, maintains that Cain was too “bombed” to know what he was doing.

“He had no idea what was happening,” the attorney said. “His mental capacity was totally blotto.”

Larry David Davis

Dawn Michelle Holman, 20, was a beauty queen who had placed third in a Miss Ventura County pageant.

According to court documents, she had stopped at a grocery store at Channel Islands Boulevard and Victoria Avenue at 3 a.m. on Aug. 28, 1988, to get a pack of cigarettes.

That’s when Larry David Davis, 32, told her he would give her $20 for a ride. At first, she laughed at his offer.

She asked a clerk, “This guy just offered me 20 bucks. Should I take it?” The clerk said, “No way,” jurors were told.

But the next thing the store clerk knew, Davis was getting into Holman’s car. That was the last time she was seen alive.

Investigators are unsure of exactly what transpired between Davis and Holman. At some point he managed to get into the driver’s seat of the car, and Holman tried to escape while the vehicle was still moving.

Officials said one of Holman’s lungs was lacerated and several ribs were cracked when she jumped from the moving car. But even though she was injured, she managed to run 160 feet onto the San Buenaventura Golf Course, where Davis caught her.

Several hours later, Holman was found half-naked and strangled.

Davis became an immediate suspect because of a strange incident that had occurred earlier in the evening, before he met Holman.

According to court records, Davis had been on a date with a 27-year-old Ventura woman he had met at a bar the day before. The woman told police that she had made arrangements to go out to dinner with Davis.

But while they were on their way to the restaurant, Davis had directed her to drive to an isolated area near Oxnard, where he tried to rape her. The woman managed to get away and called police. But she decided not to press charges since she was planning on moving away from Ventura County.

The police had no choice but to let Davis go.

Holman’s mother, Debbie Guadagno, said she can’t go a day without thinking about her daughter and the pain she suffered before her death.

“I think about the poor little thing and how scared she must have been,” Guadagno said. “I know I’m not the only mother to feel this kind of pain.”

Davis was sentenced in 1990 to die in the gas chamber. An appeal date has not yet been set in state Supreme Court. He maintains his innocence.

Gregory Scott Smith

On April 3, Gregory Scott Smith, 23, became the latest Ventura County inmate sentenced to die in the gas chamber.

He was found guilty of kidnaping, raping and murdering an 8-year-old Northridge boy--Paul Bailly--and setting his body on fire near Simi Valley two years ago.

On Oct. 8, 1991, the eve of his trial, Smith pleaded guilty to the charges against him. A Superior Court jury then began a two-month penalty trial, which ended with a jury’s recommendation that Smith be sentenced to death.

In pleading for his life, Smith’s lawyers said their client had the mind of a child.

“What we had was a horrible crime and a defective human being who committed the crime,” said Farley, who defended Smith as well as Fauber. “We should not be in the business of taking the lives of individuals who have no control over their lives.”

But prosecutors said Smith was a vindictive man who took sexual pleasure in killing Paul and purposely put extra gasoline on the boy’s face and groin to obliterate those parts of his body.

During the sentencing, Smith begged Judge Steven Z. Perren to spare him from the gas chamber.

“No one’s more angry or upset with myself for what’s happened to Paul than me,” Smith told the judge. “And to make me sit in a cage for the rest of my life and think about Paul and the other people I’ve hurt is a million times worse than the death penalty.”

As in all capital cases, the decision automatically will be appealed.

Ventura County’s Death Row Inmates

Tracy Cain, 29. Sentenced to death in July, 1988, for bludgeoning a retired Oxnard couple to death with a rocking chair. According to prosecutors, Cain robbed his victims, who were next-door neighbors, of their savings and spent the money on tapes, a new stereo and clothes. His appeal in state Supreme Court is still pending.

Larry David Davis, 32. Sentenced in March, 1990, for killing a 20-year-old former Ventura County beauty queen. Davis is said to have met the woman at a grocery store, asked for a ride and then raped and strangled her at the San Buenaventura Golf Course. His trial record is being prepared to be sent to the state Supreme Court.

Curtis Fauber. Sentenced to death in May, 1988, for murdering an Oxnard businessman over money and drugs. Prosecutors said that Fauber and an accomplice tied the man up with duct tape and ransacked the house while Fauber bludgeoned him. The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the appeal on May 4.

Theodore Francis Frank, 57. Sentenced to death Feb. 11, 1987, for the murder of 2 1/2-year-old Amy Sue Seitz. Frank had been sentenced to death in 1980, but won a new penalty trial from the state Supreme Court in 1985. The court affirmed the second decision in November, 1990. The case is now pending in U.S. District Court.

Robert Cruz McLain, 52. Sentenced to death in May, 1981, for raping and shooting to death a 20-year-old Ventura hitchhiker, one of two murders McLain committed. The state Supreme Court affirmed the decision in July, 1988. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case in March, 1989. An appeal is pending in U.S. District Court.

Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz, 54. Sentenced to death in February, 1980, for killing his third wife, his fifth wife and her teen-age son. The state Supreme Court affirmed the decision in 1988. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case in 1988. An appeal, based on a prison psychiatric diagnosis, is pending in U.S. District Court.

Gregory Scott Smith, 23. Sentenced to death on April 3 for kidnaping, raping and murdering 8-year-old Paul Bailly of Northridge, whose body was found burned beyond recognition in a field near Simi Valley two years ago. Smith, who is said by his defense attorneys to have the mind of a child, was sent to San Quentin last week.