Second Suspect in Shevawn Geoghegan Killing Pleads No Contest

By Anne La Jeunesse

The second of the accused killers of Shevawn Geoghegan pleaded no contest to manslaughter Monday in a move that averts a second murder trial in connection with the Feb. 24, 1998 strangulation of the 14-year-old girl in an abandoned mental health clinic inhabited by drifters and runaways.

Elizabeth Ann Mangham, 17, like co-defendant Glen Ballis Mason, had been charged with first degree murder and possession of stolen property and would have faced life in prison without parole if she had gone to trial, as was expected this week. Mangham was found with Shevawn's Betty Boop watch when she was arrested with Mason, according to investigators.

A Santa Monica Superior Court jury last week convicted Mason, 23, of first degree murder in the gruesome death of Shevawn, who had been bound to an office-style chair with duct tape, gagged with a sock and strangled with a cloth belt. Although evidence of satanic activities conducted in the basement of the abandoned clinic basement was presented, jurors indicated that that dark evidence played little part in their deliberations.

A second man and third suspect in Shevawn's killing, Jimmy "Linus" Turner, whom Mason's attorney, Alternate Public Defender Mark Lewinstein, said is the true killer, remains at large.

Under the plea agreement made with the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, Mangham will be sentenced in mid-October to 11 years, according to Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson, one of two prosecutors in the cases of Mason and Mangham.

Because the manslaughter conviction constitutes a strike under the "Three Strikes and You're Out" law, Mangham will not be eligible for parole until she serves at least 85 percent of her sentence, attorneys said.

It will not be decided until that time if she will be incarcerated in state prison or housed with the California Youth Authority.

"Before the trial was conducted she was never offered any deal, she was charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances," said Mark P. Brandt, Mangham's Santa Monica based attorney. "Once the prosecutors saw overwhelming evidence that said Glen Mason, not Elizabeth Mangham, killed Shevawn, they offered her a plea to a manslaughter charge."

Jackson agreed, saying that Mason's trial made the Mangham deal logical.

"It was our belief, based on the understanding of the facts of the case - and we do understand the facts of the case after a month-long trial -- that her culpability was such that it justified this particular plea bargain," Jackson said.

Brandt said that while he believes Mangham has viable defenses and never intended to kill Shevawn, his client did admit to tying Shevawn to the chair, believing it was a game.

"When you are faced with life without the possibility of parole and the prosecution offers you 11 years (for manslaughter) the choice is kind of made for you," Brandt said.

Superior Court Judge Bernard J. Kamins scheduled Mangham's sentencing in October to give authorities time to complete psychological and other tests on the Texas teenager.

Shevawn Geoghegan's mother, Eileen Geoghegan, who attended every day of the trial with her husband, Edward Geoghegan, said that she hopes Mangham is sentenced to prison and feels that the plea bargain reflects sympathy for Mangham's youthful age.

"As far as she goes, to me, I feel that the three of them did it," Eileen Geoghegan said, referring to Mangham, Mason and Turner. "I guess they just felt that because she was so young … I'm just glad that Ballis is getting put away."

Eileen Geoghegan said that she feels that if Mangham had known her daughter, the outcome would have been different.

"It's a shame that Liz Mangham never knew her. I think that maybe, if she knew Shevawn for who she was, maybe she never would have had any part in this," Eileen Geoghegan said.