I used to race cars with this guy. He and I went and got tattoos in downtown LA. I dated his sister-in-law.
High Court Upholds Death Sentence in ‘Poisoned by Love’ Murders
The state Supreme Court yesterday unanimously upheld the death sentence given a Fresno man convicted of killing his mother and two wives by poisoning.
Steven David Catlin was sentenced to death by Kern Superior Court Judge Lewis E. King in 1990 for the 1984 murder of his mother, Martha Catlin, after being convicted of her murder and that of his fourth wife, Joyce Catlin, which occurred in 1976.
The case was the subject of the 1993 television movie “Poisoned by Love: The Kern County Murders.” Steven Catlin was portrayed by Harry Hamlin, better known as one of the stars of the television series “L.A. Law.”
The two crimes were tried together under an information filed in 1985, but the death penalty did not apply to the murder of Joyce Catlin because it occurred before California reinstated the death penalty. Catlin was tried separately in the 1984 death of his fifth wife, Glenna Kaye Catlin, and convicted in 1988.
Catlin’s court-appointed appellate attorney, Horace Freedman of Culver City, argued that it was unfair to prosecute his client in Joyce Catlin’s death because two possible witnesses had died in the interim. Had he not been tried simultaneously for Joyce Catlin’s murder, Freedman further argued, he might not have received the death penalty for killing Martha Catlin.
In any event, Freedman contended, the two murders shouldn’t have been tried together.