Echo Park Man Gets Life in 1979 Rape-Murder

LOS ANGELES, CA -- An Echo Park native who killed a young woman during a rape in Glendale 37 years ago was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe imposed the term on Darrel Mark Gurule, now 58, who was convicted Sept. 28 of first-degree murder for the September 1979 shooting death of 23-year-old Barbara Ballman.

The panel also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a rape and murder with a prior conviction, but deadlocked on a third special circumstance allegation -- murder during the course of a robbery.

Jurors also deadlocked in the trial's penalty phase on Oct. 13, with 10 members of the panel favoring a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole and two voting for a death sentence.

The prosecution announced Dec. 2 that it would no longer pursue the death penalty against Gurule.

Ballman's naked body was found in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1979, inside her Volkswagen sedan parked across from Edison Elementary School.

Ballman was killed Sept. 20, 1979, some time after leaving her older sister's home.

Linda Benjamin told jurors that her sister moved to California after she did.

"I hate that she ... was murdered on my watch," Benjamin told jurors in Gurule's trial, reading from a journal she kept after her sister was killed.

Gurule was charged with Ballman's murder in 2010 after DNA evidence linked him to the killing, authorities said.

Glendale police said semen was recovered from the victim, who had been shot in the abdomen, but DNA analysis was not available at the time. When Glendale police re-opened an investigation into Ballman's killing and submitted the semen evidence to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's crime lab, a match was made with Gurule's DNA, police said.

Gurule -- who was 19 at the time of the killing -- was already serving a life prison sentence for the 1987 kidnap-murder of Roberto Bruno when he was charged with Ballman's murder. Detectives believe Bruno was shot to death as the result of a drug deal gone wrong.

Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Chung told jurors earlier this year that witnesses and transcripts show that Gurule also kidnapped and sexually assaulted another woman in 1977, assaulted two brothers in 1979, robbed a man in 1982 and received stolen goods in 1986.

One of Gurule's attorneys, Philip Peng, told the jury that his client grew up in Echo Park in the 1960s and '70s, when the area was controlled by warring gangs, and called Gurule's father "an extremely vicious man with heavy hands," who regularly beat his wife and their eight children.

City News Service; Photo: Shutterstock