Attorneys Give Closing Arguments in Murder Trial

LANCASTER — By dumping the bodies of his girlfriend and her crippled dog into a septic tank after beating them to death with a pipe wrench, Steven Swaim showed that he knew “his act wasn’t justified,” a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Beginning closing arguments in Swaim’s murder trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Mills reminded the six-woman, six-man jury that Swaim had admitted to sheriff’s deputies that he killed Barbara Weston by hitting her several times on the head with the wrench and a knife sharpener.

Swaim, a 42-year-old construction worker, sat motionless as Mills attacked his testimony that he was afraid of Weston, 51, and acted in self-defense. The case is scheduled to go to the jury today.

“Everybody knows a pipe wrench can be a deadly weapon,” Mills said. “He wasn’t trying to protect himself . . . he knew what would happen if he struck her in the head over and over.”

After Weston’s body was discovered last August, Swaim admitted to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide detectives that he had killed Weston sometime in the summer of 1993.

His attorney, Patricia Charlton, said that Swaim was only trying to protect himself from Weston, whom the attorney described as a violent former marine and truck driver who boozed and brawled regularly at local bars. Weston had shot Swaim in the finger during one of their previous fights, the defense attorney said.

That fight, according to Swaim’s testimony, led Weston to fire several shots at him from a handgun, blowing out the tires on his truck. He also acknowledged that in retaliation, he rammed her house with his truck and set it on fire.

But Swaim said that during their last argument, he feared for his life after Weston pushed him into the refrigerator inside the trailer the two shared. Charlton asked the jury to remember the testimony of a witness who said that Weston once fought a man and “cold-cocked him with one punch.”

Mills challenged Charlton’s depiction of Weston and said that even if it were true, it would not be reason enough to kill.

“The law says you’re allowed to use reasonable force,” Mills said. “He didn’t push her back or even punch her. He clubbed her over the head with two different objects.”

The case was notable for the unusual evidence found in the septic tank that helped lead detectives to Swaim.

Weston’s former neighbors remembered her disabled dachshund “Willie” after detectives showed them the “doggy wheelchair” that was also buried in the septic tank with Weston.

The prosecution is seeking a verdict of murder in the first degree.