Killer’s appeal denied in 1988 cold case murder of woman abducted from Pasadena mall

A state appeals court panel has upheld a man's conviction for the kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder of a woman who disappeared while shopping at a California mall nearly 38 years ago.The three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter had erred by admitting Ronald Anthony Jones' statements to police detectives after his arrest.

His lawyers also argued the judge made a mistake in failing to reduce his murder charge or dismiss the special circumstance allegations against him after a U.S. District judge ruled that his first trial was "incurably tainted by race-based discrimination" two decades earlier.

Jones, now 56, was convicted for a second time in October 2024 of first-degree murder for the Oct. 18, 1988, slaying of the 26-year-old Lois Haro, who was found by Pasadena police in an isolated area near the 134 Freeway with a gunshot wound to her head.The second jury to hear the case against Jones also found true four special-circumstance allegations -- murder during the commission of a rape, forcible oral copulation, kidnapping and robbery -- along with an allegation that someone involved in the crime personally used a handgun.

open image in galleryThe judge who handled his sentencing said she couldn't imagine a ‘more horrific crime’ and noted that the killer's eyes were dry when the victim's family members were speaking during the sentencing (Getty/iStock)The jury's foreperson told the judge that the panel had deadlocked 6-6 on whether Jones had personally used a handgun during the crime.Jones had pleaded guilty just before his retrial to one count each of forcible rape while acting in concert, forcible oral copulation, kidnapping to commit robbery and second-degree robbery.Just before being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in October 2024, Jones apologized to the victim's family, saying, `Sincerely I apologize ...

I have taken full responsibility for my actions ... I've been waiting to apologize to you guys for decades ... I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

The judge said she couldn't imagine a "more horrific crime" and noted that Jones' eyes were dry when the victim's family members were speaking during the sentencing. The judge said he only showed emotion when he spoke to his family, who was sitting in the courtroom."You said, `I never made any excuses.'

Yes, you did," the judge said. "So to sit here and say, `Well, I have always taken responsibility' - - no, you have not."The judge told the defendant that he and his crime partner, George Marvin Trone Jr.

, "preyed on a woman who was vulnerable" and "could have just robbed her."Trone, also now 56, is also serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the crime.Jones' case was sent back after U.

S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton concluded in a September 2021 ruling that Jones was entitled to a new trial.

That ruling stemmed from a defense petition alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when a now-retired prosecutor in that trial used four of the prosecution's 12 peremptory challenges to dismiss all four prospective jurors who were or appeared to be Black as Jones is.Hunter subsequently barred the prosecution from again seeking the death penalty against Jones under the Racial Justice Act, but denied the defense's request to reduce the murder charge to second-degree or to dismiss the special circumstance allegations."There is no celebration here, only relief in the verdict," the victim's husband, Tony Haro, said at Jones' latest sentencing.

He said he wanted to be in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom to see that "justice prevailed" for his wife.Haro -- who has remarried since the killing and was called as the prosecution's first witness during Jones' retrial -- noted that he has moved on with his life and a family but added that "Lois will always have a special place in my heart the rest of my life."Tony Haro's second wife, Genie, said the family lights a candle to remember Lois Haro on her birthday and the day she died."

You will die in prison as it should be," she told the defendant. "Because of men like you, women always have to be on the alert."One of Tony Haro's daughters with his second wife said in a statement read in court on her behalf that she can't help but think of her father's first wife when she is alone in public, while another of his daughters called her father "a hero who does not deserve to go through this again" and said that Lois Haro's love and spirit remain indestructible.

The judge also heard from Lois Haro's siblings, including her sister, Anna Beth, who described the terror and grief she felt as "overwhelming" as a 16-year-old when she first saw her oldest sister's body at the mortuary. She called what happened an "unspeakable crime" against a "sister who was nothing but goodness to me."Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, who was assigned to the case with col