2 Plead Not Guilty in Slaying of Valley Woman : Courts: Men are accused of killing North Hills resident outside Bible class. Defendants--and a prison inmate--are also charged in Reseda woman’s slaying.

Two Canoga Park men pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that they killed and robbed Laurie Myles, the North Hills woman shot to death in front of her 9-year-old son in 1993 while waiting for her teen-age daughter to get out of a Bible study class.

The two men--and a third man currently in prison--also were charged with the murder of Talin Kara Tarkhanian, 20, of Reseda, who was found shot to death behind the wheel of her car in Chatsworth about a month after Myles was killed.

Police allege that Myles was killed at random in a series of violent follow-home robberies the men committed from June to November, 1993. However, a prosecutor said, Tarkhanian apparently was shot because she had a relationship with one of the alleged killers and broke up with him.

In San Fernando Municipal Court on Monday afternoon, Etienne Michael Moore, 20, and LaCedrick Johnson, 19, showed no emotion as they entered their pleas to two counts each of murder and robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery using force.

The charges carry special circumstances of multiple murders, robbery and lying in wait, which make the defendants eligible for the death penalty, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Janice L. Maurizi. A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made after a preliminary hearing, Maurizi said. The two men were being held without bail.

Shashonee Monette Solomon, 32, who is to be brought from a state prison near San Luis Obispo, is expected to be arraigned next week in the slaying of Tarkhanian.

The arrests of Moore and Johnson at their Canoga Park homes Thursday ended an intense investigation begun by police immediately after the Sept. 15, 1993, killing of Myles, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen L. Cooley, head of the San Fernando branch of the district attorney’s office.

“The police investigated very diligently and persistently,” Cooley said.

Initially, police were pursuing three separate investigations into the killing of Myles, the killing of Tarkhanian and a string of robberies in the West Valley in 1993.

Police narrowed 500 robberies to about 30 to 40 based on the method of operation, which usually involved robbers who followed drivers home to darkened areas. The gunmen typically would drive up and rob the victims while they were still seated in their cars or as they were about to get out, Los Angeles Police Lt. Kyle Jackson said.

Detectives also began examining cases in which shots were fired and victims were assaulted. Myles was shot as she waited in her car outside her daughter’s Bible study class in Northridge.

Maurizi said Myles is believed to be the only robbery victim killed by the group, but at least three others were wounded. She said that in some cases the robbers fired their guns but no one was hit.

Two teen-age boys from Canoga Park and a third man also were arrested in the robbery investigation Thursday, but have been released and have not been charged with any crimes, Jackson said. Police served search warrants at the homes of five of the suspects Thursday, the lieutenant said, and evidence seized in the searches was crucial to their investigation into the slayings of Tarkhanian and Myles.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Sept. 15, 1993, Myles, 37, and her son pulled into the driveway of a home in the 8600 block of Louise Avenue in Northridge to pick up her daughter from class.

Before she could get out of her car, a man with a gun approached her and demanded money, the boy later told police. She handed over her purse and a briefcase, but was shot anyway under the left arm at close range, and died a short time later at the hospital.

Maurizi said that just before the shot was fired, Myles either screamed or made a move to start the car. Myles’ son, though shaken by the shooting, was able to give police a description of the men and their car.

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Tarkhanian’s body was found Oct. 31, 1993, behind the wheel of her sports car in the hills near the Simi Valley Freeway in Chatsworth. Two weeks earlier, Solomon--who sometimes went by his middle name of Monette--had burst into an office where Tarkhanian worked--and where he previously had worked--and fired two shots from a .357 magnum pistol into the floor near her feet and then fled, officers said.

Police said at the time that Solomon was angry at Tarkhanian because she had reported alleged violations of his parole terms to his parole officer, including that he was carrying a gun. Solomon, who had been convicted of forgery in 1987 and robbery in 1989, was subsequently sentenced to five years imprisonment for possession of a gun by a convicted felon.

Maurizi on Monday said police now believe that Solomon also was angry at Tarkhanian because she broke off their relationship. Although Solomon was in Sacramento at the time Tarkhanian was killed, authorities believe he asked Moore and Johnson to kill her, Maurizi said.

She said investigators believe that Moore fired the fatal shots in both killings.

The string of robberies ended in November, 1993, police said, when Moore was arrested for assaulting an off-duty Baldwin Park police officer, who had stumbled upon a fight in the parking lot of a Canoga Park liquor store after a robbery. Moore was with a group of men beating up two other men, when Officer Gregory Denels approached them.

The men fired shots at Denels, who was hit twice in the leg. The men then kicked Denels while he was on the ground and took his gun. Moore and three other men were arrested shortly after the incident and charged with assault and robbery.

While awaiting trial on those charges, Moore got into a fight with a murder suspect in a courtroom holding cell. Moore was stabbed several times with a homemade knife, but survived. At the time, police said Moore was stabbed because the other inmate had grown tired of Moore bragging about having almost killed a police officer.

During Moore’s trial, he agreed to plead guilty to robbery in exchange for prosecutors dropping the assault charge, and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was paroled in February.

Police began connecting the two killings and the robberies earlier this year.

Three additional suspects whom police have described as co-conspirators are being sought in the string of robberies. Police also hope that Moore and Johnson eventually will be charged in 30 to 40 additional robberies, Jackson said.

News of the arrests came as a relief to Stephen Tavani, who heads a ministry that had employed Myles.

“I’m glad, because hopefully it won’t happen to someone else now,” Tavani said.