An Altadena man was sentenced Thursday to death for murdering a friend’s mother and her three daughters and then setting the family’s Lancaster home on fire.
Superior Court Judge Lisa Chung denied an automatic motion to reduce the jury’s recommendation of the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Corey Lynn King, 24.
King was convicted Nov. 25 of four counts of first-degree murder for the Sept. 9, 2008, killings of Sonya Harris, 43, and her daughters, Kayla Clark, 9, Melinda Harris, 11, and Ebony Horton, 14.
Jurors found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and torture in the killings of Harris and her two older daughters, and also convicted him of one count each of arson of an inhabited structure and grand theft auto.
Harris was stabbed more than 50 times and her 14-year-old daughter was stabbed more than 60 times. The woman’s 11-year-old daughter was beaten and stomped to death, along with being stabbed, and her 9-year-old daughter was strangled, according to Assistant Head Deputy Robert Sherwood.
King was a friend of Harris’ son, who was out of state when the defendant showed up at the home.
After killing the victims, King drove to a nearby gas station to buy gasoline, which he poured over the bodies and throughout the house before setting it on fire.
Sherwood said an argument might have been the motive for Harris’ murder and that her three daughters were killed because they were witnesses to their mother’s slaying.
King surrendered shortly after midnight the day after the bodies were found inside the burning home in the 1500 block of East Avenue J-3.
“These were really horrific facts,” the prosecutor said shortly after the verdict.
— City News Service