In the summer of 1983, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Paul Verna was on patrol on his motorcycle in Lake View Terrace when he spotted a gray, two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass on the road.
He flashed his lights at the driver, who pulled over on Hoyt Street, a neighborhood tucked away from busy Van Nuys Boulevard just to the northeast.
Nothing would have appeared out of place with this particular traffic stop: At that moment, Verna wouldn’t have known anything about Pamela Cummings, the driver who exited the Oldsmobile. He wouldn’t have been aware of her two passengers, either: Kenneth Earl Gay, Pamela’s friend from childhood, sitting in the passenger seat, and her husband, Raynard, laying low in the backseat.
As he wrote Pamela Cummings’ name in his notebook, Verna might not have noticed whether she was behaving strangely: For the last two months, she had acted as a getaway driver for Gay and her husband as they committed a string of violent robberies across the San Fernando Valley.
Verna would have no idea Raynard Cummings was quite prepared to kill him.
Verna also would never know how many details of his death — by at least one gunshot at near point-blank range, then by a flurry of five more shots as he lay on his back dying in the street — would still be debated more than 40 years later.
Gay, now 65 and imprisoned for much of his life, is on trial again this week for what he did or did not do to cause Verna’s death. Both prosecutors and Gay’s defenders wrapped up their cases Thursday, Aug. 10, with the 12-person jury beginning deliberations later in the day.
This is the third time Gay is on trial for what prosecutors say was his role in the killing: They allege he took the revolver from Raynard Cummings before stepping out of the car to fire three shots at Verna, who was desperately trying to get away from him. They said Gay fired two more into Verna when the officer collapsed on the ground.
For decades, Gay has maintained that…
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