Man gets life for hate killing

2006-03-25 15:48

Santa Ana - A man was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing a retired immigration agent who was found with a slur against gays written on his back.

Gregory Michael Pisarcik was convicted of first-degree murder last November for the 2002 slaying of 53-year-old Narciso Leggs Jr.

Leggs, who was gay, was found in his apartment in an unincorporated area of Santa Ana after his landlord called police because he hadn't seen Leggs in several days.

Leggs' head had been smashed with a champagne bottle and the apartment was ransacked, prosecutors said.

The victim's ears had been cut off with scissors in what might have been an act of rage after the attacker was unable to find money, Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said.

"You're an angry young man for a variety of reasons," Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank Fasel told Pisarcik at the sentencing.

Leggs' sister, Paula McClain, told the judge her brother would have helped Pisarcik by giving him money - if robbery was the motive.

"If Pisarcik had really known what kind of person my brother Narciso was, he could not have been able to murder my brother," she testified.

Leggs had worked for the agency then known as the Immigration and Naturalisation Service for about 22 years and had been retired about five years when he was killed. He had started a limousine business using his Lincoln Continental and a Rolls-Royce.

"Whether my brother was gay or straight, my brother projected a very useful, hardworking and positive life," McClain said. "He never judged others."

Pisarcik made no statements during the sentencing hearing.

Pisarcik told authorities he had been raped by a man when he was 12 and had taken drugs for years to help ease the painful memories of that incident, according to his probation report.

- AP