LOS ANGELES – A state appeals court yesterday upheld the murder conviction of a man who was tricked by detectives into leaving his DNA on a coffee cup more than 30 years after the killing.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal found that Adolph Laudenberg, 81, left the cup on a table in a coffee shop and therefore didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The ruling rejected a defense argument that the trial court erred in allowing the evidence.
In 2006, Laudenberg was convicted of the 1972 strangling of Lois Petrie, 43, based on DNA evidence detectives obtained from the plastic foam cup and DNA recovered from the body at autopsy.
Petrie was strangled on Christmas Eve that year at home in the Los Angeles harbor community of San Pedro.
Police also suspect Laudenberg was connected to three other deaths: Catherine Medina, 50, whose nude body was found in a San Pedro park in 1974; Anna Felch, 54, of San Pedro, who was strangled and sexually assaulted in 1974; and Lehan Griffin, who was found dead in a San Francisco hotel room in 1975.
Laudenberg, who was working as a taxi driver in San Pedro at the time of the killings, was interviewed by police in 1975. Police at the time could not find physical evidence linking him to the murders.
Prosecutors believed Laudenberg killed the women because he was having marital problems, and the victims had a likeness to his wife at the time.
The Petrie murder case was cold until Laudenberg's daughter-in-law told police he described to her where he dumped the bodies. Detectives found those descriptions matched where the corpses were found.
A detective located Laudenberg in 2003 and arranged to interview him about an automobile theft to avoid tipping him off he was being investigated for the murder.
Detective Robert Dinlocker met Laudenberg at a Circus Doughnuts, a suburban Torrance coffee shop, where he had prepared video surveillance and another undercover officer was seated.
The two talked while Laudenberg sipped from a foam coffee cup.
When Laudenberg got up to leave and walked away, Dinlocker put the cup where the undercover officer could retrieve it.
A DNA sample from the cup linked Laudenberg to the Petrie murder.
Laudenberg's defense attorney argued at trial court that the DNA evidence should be suppressed because of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
The trial court ruled that the evidence was admissible because Laudenberg did not put the coffee cup in the trash, and the appellate court agreed, noting he didn't return for the cup, either.
