Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts of Los Angeles, California and the U.S.

April 07, 2008

Transient Sent to Prison for Life for Murders of Screenwriter, Physician

LOS ANGELES – Keven Lee Graff, a 31-year-old ex-Marine and drifter who admitted murdering a screenwriter and physician at their Hollywood homes in 2004, was sentenced today to two consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole following an emotional hearing in which the loved ones of both victims described the personal devastation caused by the killings.

Graff, who pleaded guilty to the murders, expressed his sorrow to the victims’ families and friends who filled the courtroom. He said he could not explain the killings.

Robert Lees, a 91-year-old screenwriter for both television and film, and 69-year-old physician Morley Engelson were tortured and murdered when Graff entered their Hollywood homes on June 13, 2004. Lees’ head was found at his neighbor’s home. Graff was arrested a day later.

Valerie Engelson, the doctor’s wife, called the defendant a “creepy figure from a cheap horror show.” She said her husband could “rest in peace now” because Graff will be locked up forever.

Helen Colton, who said she had been Lees’ “devoted companion” for 23 years and who found his mutilated body, told the defendant, “There’s no such thing as closure. It does not exist, Mr. Graff.”

The women were among nearly a dozen family and extended family members of the two murdered men who gave victim impact statements prior to Graff’s sentencing by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson.

Deputy District Attorney Ricardo Ocampo of the Major Crimes Division, who with Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson prosecuted the case, said that the Lees family asked that $700 in funeral costs owed them by the defendant be donated to the Robert Lees scholarship fund at Glendale College.

Graff pleaded guilty on Feb. 26 to the first-degree murders, along with eight other charges including torture, aggravated mayhem, sexual penetration by a foreign object and first-degree burglary. The mostly life sentences on the other charges will run concurrently with the two life-without-parole sentences.

Johnson ordered the defendant to pay $9,900 in restitution and fees, including the $700 to the Lees scholarship.

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CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER

JOSEPH SHEMARIA

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Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts of Los Angeles, California and the U.S.