San Jacinto Man Found Guilty of Raping Hemet Senior, Murdering Another

 A San Jacinto man was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder and other charges stemming from the 2007 slaying and attempted rape of a 74-year-old woman in her Hemet apartment and a series of other crimes, including the sexual assault of another woman.

The Murrieta jury also found true special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a burglary or the commission of an attempted rape against 26-year-old Kenneth Daniels Jr., making him eligible for the death penalty.

Daniels was additionally convicted of 11 other felonies, including elder abuse and forcible rape, for the series of crimes he committed from late August through late December 2007 at the Oak Terrace Senior Apartments on North Santa Fe Street in Hemet.

On Aug. 26, the same panel that convicted Daniels will begin hearing evidence to decide whether to recommend that Daniels be put to death or spent the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Daniels, who has been in custody without bail since Dec. 28, 2007, was charged in three separate assaults -- two of which involved the same woman -- at the gated facility reserved for residents 55 and over.

Prosecutors said Daniels broke into the apartment complex in the predawn hours of Aug. 21, Oct. 19 and Dec. 11, 2007. In the latter instance, 74-year- old Rosemarie Edwin was beaten to death.

Daniels forced his way into the wheelchair-dependent victim's residence and attempted to sexually assault her, but she apparently resisted and he repeatedly struck her in the head, inflicting fatal injuries, according to trial testimony.

During the Aug. 21 and Oct. 19 attacks, the defendant pushed open an unlocked balcony door to access a then-63-year-old woman's apartment. The victim, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe, told investigators she had fallen asleep in her recliner while watching television and awoke to find Daniels in her kitchen.

She said she tried to flee out the front door, but Daniels -- whom she positively identified -- punched her in the head, knocking her down and pummeling her until gaining her full compliance. According to the victim, the defendant forced her to orally copulate him.

The victim said she suffered a fractured cheek bone, broken eye socket, several chipped teeth and a badly dislocated shoulder. She was still in recovery when, almost exactly two months later, Daniels returned, breaking into her apartment the same way he had before.

"And I said, 'No, not again. Please no, not again,"' the woman testified.

She said Daniels forced her into the bedroom and raped her, leaving soon afterward. She moved out of the apartment weeks later.

After Edwin's death, Hemet police officers began staking out the complex on a nightly basis. Around 2 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2007, they caught the 6-foot-3, 185-pound defendant attempting to break into another senior's unit.

– City News Service.