William Tillett was kidnapped and killed on May 24, 1990.
LOS ANGELES — An ex-con has been convicted of the murder of an 11-year-old boy who wasA downtown Los Angeles jury deliberated about three hours Thursday before convicting Edward Donell Thomas, 53, of Pomona, of first-degree murder for the May 24, 1990, death of William Tillett.
The boy was found unresponsive and not breathing just before 10 p.m. that night in a carport in a residential neighborhood in Hawthorne. He had been suffocated and his hands and feet were bound with duct tape, according to the deputy district attorney. The prosecutor contended that the only reasonable explanation for the DNA was Thomas making direct contact with the boy.
The defense lawyer said there was “no evidence that Mr. Thomas kidnapped William or aided and abetted the killing,” and that no one identified Thomas as one of the two men who were seen in a silver Datsun shortly before the body was dumped.