Man Found Guilty in Torture-Slaying

VENTURA —  Three years after his arrest, a 22-year-old Lawndale man was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and related charges Tuesday for his role in a nightmarish torture-slaying.

Billy Lyn Davis, who initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced Nov. 16.

Davis withdrew his insanity plea and later waived a jury trial. Written evidence was submitted instead to Ventura County Superior Court Judge James Cloninger, who announced Tuesday that he found Davis guilty of murdering 20-year-old Anthony Guest of Redondo Beach.

Guest was kidnapped by Davis and co-defendant Spencer Rawlin Brasure, 29, in September, 1996, as a favor to a female friend. She had briefly dated Guest and wanted Brasure to beat him up after the pair broke up.

But the woman testified at Brasure’s trial that she had no idea what the pair would ultimately do.

According to witness accounts, Brasure and Davis tied Guest to a makeshift electric chair, burned him, stapled wood to his ear and glued broken glass in his mouth. After hours of torture, they pushed Guest into a plastic trash can and drove to the Hungry Valley Recreation Area near Gorman, where they burned him alive with gasoline and a road flare.

Two maintenance workers found Guest’s remains beneath a juniper bush on Sept. 13, 1996.

Brasure, who had bragged to friends about the assault, was the first to stand trial. He was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy, kidnapping and related offenses, including witness intimidation.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty. After a weeklong penalty proceeding, jurors decided Brasure should be executed. He was sentenced to death in August 1998.