Jury Finds Son Guilty of Second Degree Murder in Father's Killing

By Lookout Staff

Oct. 30 -- Santa Monica resident Albert Victor White, 44, was found guilty of second degree murder Wednesday for bludgeoning his 77-year-old father to death earlier this year.

After deliberating for 12 hours the jury unanimously convicted White of killing his father, Pranas "Frank" Brazinskas, by striking him more than eight times on the head with a barbell during an altercation at their apartment in the Wilshire/Montana neighborhood on February 5.

The 12 jurors concluded that the murder was not premeditated and found White, who also goes by the name Algridas Brazinskas, guilty of the lesser charge of second degree murder, which carries a minimum penalty of 15 years in prison.

White, who claimed self-defense, pleaded not guilty back in February. The defense argued that White had acted in self-defense after his father threatened him with a loaded pistol.

The first of seven homicides this year, Brazinskas' murder made headlines because of the father and son's role in an international highjacking that garnered media attention more than 30 years earlier.

A member of the Lithuanian resistance movement, Brazinskas, along with his then 13-year-old son, hijacked a Soviet jetliner in Southern Russia during a regularly scheduled flight from Batumi to Krasnodar in 1970.

A gun battle ensued on the jet between the pair and two Soviet guards that resulted in the death of flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko and the wounding of the plane's pilot and co-pilot who landed the jet in Turkey.

After prison time in Turkey the men traveled to Venezuela and flew to Canada. During in stopover in New York, they disappeared but were discovered several weeks later. Ultimately the two were allowed to stay in the states and settled in Santa Monica.

Sentencing is scheduled for December 6.