Prosecutor Says Fingerprints Tie Grandson to Man’s Slaying : Crime: The trial begins in the case of a struggling actor and musician charged with a 1983 killing.

More than six years after his grandfather was found beaten and shot to death in North Hollywood, Noel P. Scott, 27, listened Tuesday in San Fernando Superior Court as a prosecutor argued that Scott had committed the crime.

Opening statements began Tuesday in the trial of Scott, a struggling actor and musician.

Scott was charged last February with murder in the October, 1983, slaying of Louis Fox, 70, after Charles Berkowitz, a childhood friend of Scott’s, implicated him while in custody on suspicion of burglary.

Scott of Hollywood has denied the killing. He has said that he was at a Hollywood club on the night of the slaying.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sidney D. Trapp Jr. said Tuesday that fingerprints on a flashlight found near the body indicates that Scott committed the Oct. 16, 1983, slaying in Fox’s home.

Other evidence suggests that Fox knew his killer, Trapp said. Although the room was not ransacked, Fox’s jewelry was stolen from a hiding place, indicating that the killer knew where the jewelry was kept, Trapp said.

Trapp said the testimony of Berkowitz, 26, and Scott’s former girlfriend will suggest that Scott planned and executed the crime.

Trapp said Scott’s former girlfriend will testify that several weeks before the crime, she rejected Scott’s proposal of marriage because he was “a bit of a loser” with no future prospects.

He told her that his financial difficulties would soon be over because he was going to inherit his grandfather’s estate, Trapp said.

In October, 1988, after he was arrested on suspicion of burglary, Berkowitz gave investigators information that prompted them to reopen the investigation into Fox’s killing.

During a preliminary hearing last June, Berkowitz testified that two days after the slaying, Scott asked Berkowitz how to change fingerprints and how to beat a lie detector test.

Scott later asked his help in pawning a large diamond, Berkowitz testified.

Trapp said Tuesday that the diamond came from one of Fox’s rings.

Shortly after he contacted police about the Scott case, Berkowitz accepted a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office and pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to three years in state prison.

Three other counts against him were dropped.