UPDATE: Verdict Reached in Trial of Marine Accused of Killing French Valley Couple

UPDATE 11:50 a.m. June 4:

A judge has delayed reading of the verdict for one of four Marines accused of killing a young sergeant and his wife in French Valley until Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in Riverside. The verdict was scheduled to be read this afternoon for Kevin Darnell Cox, 25, who is accused in the Oct. 15, 2008, slayings of 24-year-old Janek Pietrzak and his 26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak. The jury reached a verdict Monday.
  
A separate jury began reviewing evidence this morning in the trial of Cox's co-defendants, 25-year-old Tyrone Miller and 23-year-old Emrys Justin John. All three of the Camp Pendleton-based Marines could face the death penalty if convicted.

ORIGINAL POST June 3:

Jurors weighing the fate of one of four Marines charged with killing a young sergeant and his wife in a home-invasion robbery that included torture reached a verdict today.

After less than two days of deliberations, a Riverside jury announced it had arrived at a decision in the case of Kevin Darnell Cox, 25, who is charged in the Oct. 15, 2008, slayings of 24-year-old Janek Pietrzak and his 26- year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Christian Theirbach ordered the verdict to be read tomorrow afternoon, when a separate jury is expected to begin reviewing evidence in the trial of his codefendants, 25-year-old Tyrone Miller and 23-year-old Emrys Justin John.

All three of the Camp Pendleton-based Marines, along with 25-year-old Kesaun Kedron Sykes, could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder and special circumstance allegations of killing during a robbery and taking multiple lives in the same crime.

Sykes is slated to be tried in August.

Arguments in Cox's trial wrapped up last week. Arguments in John's and Miller's trial will conclude Tuesday.

Deputy District Attorney Daniel DeLimon called the accused killers "Marines by day and criminals by night."

According to DeLimon, the four Marines wanted in the Pietrzaks' two- story house at 31319 Bermuda Ave. in French Valley not only because of greed.

"This was about having the power to see the fear in somebody's eyes. It's about taking pleasure in the sexual humiliation of a woman and tormenting her husband by making him watch," the prosecutor said.

DeLimon quoted one of the defendants describing the 90-minute ransacking of the home  and abuse of the couple as "party time."

According to DeLimon, Cox attempted to minimize his role in the slayings. But the statements he made to friends afterward and Miller's testimony revealed that Cox was an active perpetrator, according to the prosecutor.

Cox allegedly helped pummel Pietrzak and was given responsibility for binding the couple to immobilize and silence them. Cox also planted evidence in an attempt to mislead  authorities, telling his associates where to paint epithets such as the "n" word to make it appear as though the crime was racially motivated, according to DeLimon.

Quiana was black and her husband, a native of Poland, was white.

Cox's attorney, Ryan Markson, argued that his client was a mere follower and went into the crime not realizing what he was getting into. The attorney said the prosecution was stretching it in making Cox -- a buck private in the Marines -- appear sophisticated enough to think up the bogus racial component of the crime.

"This was not about what Kevin Cox wanted; this was about Tyrone Miller wanting that extra stripe and being told by Sgt. Pietrzak that he wasn't going to get it," Markson said, referring to a conversation between Miller and Pietrzak the day before the killings.

Miller testified that he was unhappy with Pietrzak, because the sergeant told the lance corporal that his chances of being promoted to corporal were nil.

Cox admitted to investigators that he rang the doorbell twice shortly after 1 a.m., and Pietrzak came downstairs in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, deactivated his house alarm and opened the front door. The defendants, armed with shotguns, beat the Pietrzak into submission, DeLimon alleged.

According to the prosecutor, Miller and Sykes stripped Quiana and used a vibrator they found in the couple's bathroom to violate her sexually. John shot the victims execution-style with a 9 mm handgun, DeLimon alleged.

All of the men served in a helicopter maintenance squadron at Camp Pendleton.

—City News Service