Man Guilty of Plotting Theater Owner’s Slaying

After six days of deliberations, a jury Tuesday convicted the man who police say orchestrated the contract murder of popular Silent Movie Showcase theater owner Lawrence Austin.

James Van Sickle, 36, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1997 killing of the 74-year-old Austin and the attempted murder of theater concessionaire Mary Giles, who was 19 at the time of the shooting.

Authorities have said Van Sickle, who was a projectionist at the theater, and Austin had a business and personal relationship.

Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Ramseyer is pressing for the death penalty because of the special circumstances of lying in wait and murder for financial gain.

Van Sickle’s stunned relatives wept as the verdicts were read. Later, Twila Weldon, his sister, was barely able to speak.

“It’s just really hard. It’s . . . hard,” said Weldon, who came from Nebraska for the trial.

Austin’s nephew, Dennis Hoerner, special administrator of Austin’s estate, said justice was done.

“There’s no doubt in my mind they did the right thing,” he said of the jury. “I know it’s been hard to come to an outcome like this. The whole process has been very hard.”

A second Los Angeles Superior Court jury reached a decision Tuesday as to the fate of Christian Rodriguez, the convicted shooter, but the verdict remained sealed while Van Sickle’s jury hears evidence and legal arguments in the penalty phase of his trial.

Van Sickle allegedly gave Rodriguez a .357-caliber gun and offered him $25,000 to kill Austin and $5,000 to kill Giles to disguise the murder as a robbery.

Rodriguez shot Austin in the face, Giles in the chest, and fired shots at patrons as he escaped through the darkened Fairfax District theater.