Father’s violent past an issue in son’s murder trial
A jury began deliberations Tuesday on whether a Santa Monica man planned to bludgeon his father to death or whether he acted in self-defense.
Albert Victor White, 45, is accused of first-degree murder for allegedly striking his 77-year-old father on the head more than eight times with a five-pound barbell on Feb. 5 in an apartment they shared on 21st Street.
A trial lawyer for White and the state’s prosecution made their closing arguments Tuesday — wrapping up the two week jury trial held before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan at the Airport Courthouse.
Attorney Jack Alex said White acted in self-defense after his father, Pranas “Frank” Brazinskas, threatened him with a loaded semi-automatic pistol.
The day before Brazinskas was killed, White told his father he was leaving to live with his wife, a U.S. State Department attaché based in Malaysia. As White packed his suitcases, Alex said the pair got into a fight because the father wanted him to stay and take care of him. When Brazinskas knew he had lost the argument, he pulled out the gun, Alex said.
Throughout the trial Alex focused on the father’s violent and bloody past to illustrate that when Brazinskas threatened White, his son had no choice but to defend himself as best he could.
“If you knew all that stuff you would be a little more scared if he pointed a loaded gun at you,” Alex said.
But Deputy District Attorney Alyson Messenger said White acted with premeditation so that he would no longer be burdened with the constant task of caring for his father and could join his wife.
Messenger put “blood splatter” experts on the stand, who testified that a spray of Brazinskas’ blood on a wall near where his body was found indicated he had been laying in bed propped up with pillows when he was fatally bludgeoned.
White had waited nearly two hours after his father was dead before he called police, during which time he changed clothes and thoroughly cleaned the bar-bell, Messenger said.
“If he hadn’t admitted what he had used on the stand, we would never have known what the murder weapon was,” she said. “He had gone to great lengths to remove all traces of evidence from the (barbell) if it avoided detection by our scientists.”
Thirty-two years ago, White — also known as Algirdas Brazinskas — helped his father hijack a Soviet commercial jet-liner to escape cold war-era Lithuania.
During the flight, Soviet KGB guards on board opened fire. 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 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 allowed them to stay in the United States. After a few years in Queens, NY they moved to Santa Monica to live among the city’s large Lithuanian community.
But Alex said the violence did not end there.
Neighbors testified Brazinskas would often threaten them with physical violence. One neighbor named Linda Flett filed a police report in 1991 alleging Brazinskas threatened to kill her and a carpet cleaner and once punched a gardener in the face.
Others testified that at one time Brazinskas, planned to blow-up the Lithuanian Church in Los Feliz using giant oxygen tanks.
In a video shown to the jury, White’s mother, who lives in Lithuania, explains how Brazinskas hit her while she was pregnant, broke her arm and caused the still birth of their child. Other relatives said they had been attacked with knives and even irons when they argued with Brazinskas.
“I introduced all those things to show that when the gun was pointed at him he really thought his father was going to kill him,” Alex said.
Messenger focused on Brazinskas’ violent past as well, but she used it to show why White had a motive to kill his father and where the rage needed for such an action originated.
And she said evidence didn’t support there had been an argument the day Brazinskas was killed. Neighbors testified they had not heard any unusual sounds coming from the pair’s apartment that day.
“The defendant made a decision he no longer wanted to take care of his father and he wanted to live with his wife, but given the previous bones of contention over that issue, he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of a possible confrontation,” Messenger said. “He killed his father so that he could finally be free of him.”
Judge Ryan instructed the jury, which began deliberating Tuesday afternoon, that they could convict White of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.
If convicted of first-degree murder, White could face a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in prison.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 30, 2002. Read the original PDF.