Two men found guilty, again, in the murder of a La Quinta artist

Two men were convicted today of second-degree murder inthe October 1997 death of an artist slain in his La Quinta home.

Sentencing is scheduled June 7 for Jesse Dean Nava and Jerry EugeneReynolds, who were retried for the murder of 43-year-old Bernardo Gouthier. Jurors deliberated for about two days before reaching the verdicts.

The defendants, who both represented themselves in the trial, wereconvicted in Gouthier’s death in February 2007, and jurors found true a specialcircumstance allegation of murder for financial gain, but their convictionswere overturned in 2008 by an appeals court panel due to a jury selectionerror.

A third man, Michael Marohn, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter inDecember 2006 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Another co-defendant,Mario Gonzalez, was tried separately, convicted of murder and sentenced to lifein prison without the possibility of parole.

Gouthier was shot on Oct. 25, 1997, at his La Quinta home in an areaknown as Sculpture Park, where he displayed his work and that of other artists.

Nava, 32, and Reynolds, 57, were arrested in 2001 in connection with themurder.

Pattison Hayton, the estranged husband of Gouthier’s live-in girlfriend,Kathy Barr, hired Reynolds to have Gouthier killed, according to theprosecution. Hayton and Barr, who had a young son, were involved in acontentious divorce, Deputy District Attorney Scot Clark said.

“We’re here because greedy men killed Bernardo Gouthier at the behestof an angry, jealous, controlling, immature, rich man,” Clark said in hisclosing argument last week. “We’re here because Jesse Nava went into that homewith his confederates … and shot Bernardo Gouthier four times. We’re herebecause Jerry Reynolds is the middle man at the behest of that rich man,setting everything in motion.”

Clark told jurors that Hayton used Reynolds, his “go-to guy” in othermatters, to “exploit … young men to get the deed done.”

He said Nava “blames Mr. Gouthier for his own death,” but shot him inthe back “like a coward.”

Nava said he went to collect payment for a debt owed to him.

“I had no premeditation or deliberation to kill this man. There was nomurder for hire,” Nava told jurors in his closing argument.

He said the special circumstance allegation didn’t apply to him becausehe didn’t intend to kill Gouthier and didn’t benefit financially.

“If it was for financial gain I would have shot him, got my financesand left . . . but it escalated,” Nava said.

He said he does owe a “debt to society,” and if jurors decided toconvict him, it should be for second-degree murder.

Reynolds said in his closing argument that Nava and Marohn were high ondrugs at the time, and Nava entered Gouthier’s house to get money or stolenartwork.

According to the prosecution, Nava, Marohn and Gonzalez went toGouthier’s home in a truck supplied by Hayton while Barr was out having dinnerwith friends, and entered the victim’s home as he was getting ready to leave tomeet Barr.

Gouthier, who was forced to his knees in his bedroom, tried to get awayand was shot four times by Nava, once in the neck and three times in the back,according to Clark.

Reynolds, who worked on the air conditioning at Hayton’s home in PGAWest in La Quinta, was at Hayton’s house the days before and after the killing,and he received a large stock transfer and cashier’s checks totaling roughly$55,000 from Hayton, the prosecutor alleged.

In a recorded phone conversation, Reynolds told his father-in-law he waswanted for murder and said he was a “go-between,” Clark said.

Nava testified that he, Marohn and Gonzalez went to Gouthier’s house tocollect money or property to pay a debt. Gouthier told the men to leave, andMarohn stepped forward with a Taser. Nava moved to take it from him, andGouthier jumped up and started yelling, Nava said.

“He kind of went down in a football stance to kind of hit me with hisshoulder maybe, and that’s when Michael yelled, `Shoot him, shoot him,”‘ Navasaid. “I closed my eyes and just squeezed the gun.”

He said he later told his daughter’s mother and a friend that he’d shota man, and Marohn’s father later told him, “It’s bigger than you think itis.”

“He said, `The guy going down for this is Jerry (Reynolds). He used youguys; you guys didn’t know better,”‘ Nava said.

Hayton died of a heart attack in 2003 in London, before authoritiescould arrest him, Clark said.