Jury returns guilty verdict in retrial of triple murder case

(2/22/06 - HOUSTON) -- A jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of capital murder in his second trial for a triple homicide that occurred 26 years ago.

Max Soffar, 50, originally was sent to death row in the 1980 killings of two teenagers and a 25-year-old man at the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center. But a three-judge appellate court panel threw out the conviction in 2004 after deciding Soffar received ineffective legal representation.

A jury returned a verdict about noon Wednesday.

A drug addict and sometime police informant who had been in and out of mental institutions and reform schools, Soffar confessed to the killings but later recanted. Defense attorneys said the former truck driver and ironworker had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old when he confessed.

Attorneys also told the jury Soffar's confessions wasn't backed up by evidence from the crime scene or the account of the robbery-murder's sole survivor, Gregory George Garner. They contend police focused on Soffar because they had no other suspects and few leads in the deaths of Arden Alane Felsher, 17; Stephen Allen Sims, 25; and Tommy Lee Temple, 17.

"Mr. Soffar fell into their laps," said defense lawyer Stanley Schneider. "They had a scapegoat ... and they held him tight."

Prosecutors argued that Soffar knew too much about the crime not to be involved. They pointed out that Soffar initiated conversations about the crime with his family and acquaintances after the murders.

"The defense didn't bring you any evidence that he falsely confessed, that he didn't commit the crime or that someone else committed the crime," said prosecutor Denise Nassar. "They picked at all the little details with hopes you'll ignore that he confessed."

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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