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# Jury convicts White of second degree murder
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/jury-convicts-white-of-second-degree-murder/
- Published: 2002-10-31T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:50:07.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Santa Monica man guilty of bludgeoning father to death*

A jury unanimously found a Santa Monica man guilty of second degree murder Wednesday for killing his father earlier this year.

The 12-person jury convicted Albert Victor White, 45, for killing his 77-year-old father by striking him more than eight times on the head with a five-pound barbell during an argument the pair had on Feb. 5 in an apartment they shared on 21st Street.

Deputy District Attorney Alyson Messenger asked the jury — which contained several Santa Monica residents — to come back with a guilty verdict of first degree murder, which required jurors to believe White had planned to kill his father.

However, after deliberating for more than 12 hours throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, jurors believed the murder was not premeditated but rather spur of the moment. And they opted for the lesser charge of second degree murder, which carries a minimum penalty of 15 years in state prison.

Defense attorney Jack Alex had argued White acted in self-defense after his father, Pranas “Frank” Brazinskas, threatened him with a loaded semi-automatic pistol.

Neither Alex nor Messenger were available for comment Thursday.

Thirty-two years ago, White — also known as Algirdas Brazinskas — helped his father hijack a Soviet commercial jetliner to escape Cold War-era Lithuania.

During the flight, Soviet KGB guards on board opened fire. Caught in the crossfire, a female steward was killed and the pilot and co-pilot were wounded. After the soldiers were subdued, the flight crew was still able to successfully fly the hijackers to Turkey.

There, the father and son were arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced in 1970 to a Turkish prison. Four years later, they were placed under house arrest.

When the Turkish government released the pair two years later, they fled to Venezuela, where they hopped a flight to Canada. But when the plane made a stop in New York, the pair disembarked and vanished from the airport.

Weeks later, Immigration and Naturalization officials caught the father and son, but they were allowed to stay in the United States. After a few short years living in Queens, N.Y., they moved to Santa Monica to live among the city’s large Lithuanian community.

The White case is the first murder of the year to go to trial. Already this year there have been seven killings, and in three of the incidents the suspected murderers committed suicide. Police have arrested and charged suspects in the other three homicides this year.

White is scheduled to be sentenced before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan in the Airport Courthouse on Dec. 6.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 31, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/103102.pdf?ref=smdp.com)