Killer Thinks He Deserves to Die

By Paul Coates
Staff Columnist

Robert Leonard Mason wants to die.

Without a flicker of emotion, the 40-year-old confessed murderer told me today: "I think I should go to the gas chamber.

"Through the State of California, I’ll pay for what I did," he added.

Mason is charged with shooting Rona Lorraine Parrazzo, 26, wife of jazz musician Johnny Zorro, and murdering her mother.

The
short and stocky Hollywood sheet metal worker first met with me
yesterday afternoon at Glendale Police Station, where he was booked on
suspicion of murder and felonious assault following his return from
Winslow, Ariz.

He was captured there in a roadblock Thursday, after invading the Glendale home of Mrs. Parrazzo, 1124- A Stanely Ave., two days before, killing her mother, Mrs. Susan Jamerson, 50, and wounding the young woman with a .38-caliber bullet in the brain.

"I want to tell it to you," he said to me. "It’ll be straight — the whole story."

‘I am Guilty’

"Do you intend to plead guilty?" I asked.

His answer was a grim: "I am guilty."

With Glendale Det. Capt. Walter E. Hegi listening, Mason began his fantastic tale of love for Mrs. Parrazzo:

"You
know the song that Frank Sinatra sings, ‘Witchcraft’? That’s what
happened to me. That woman could make me do anything. It was like she
had a spell over me.

"I didn’t want to harm that woman. And God knows I didn’t want to kill her mother. Her mother was innocent. So innocent.

Denies Choking Her

"When
I went to their house that night, I just wanted to scare Rona into
telling me who she was covering up for that time when she accused me of
choking her to death.

"I didn’t put those marks on her neck.
Later, it’s true, I did rough her up a couple times. But I was just
trying to find out who she was protecting the first time."

Mason,
who was befriended by Zorro and his wife in 1954, rambled on about his
friendship with the couple and their son Paige, 5.

He
continued that he had been intimate with Zorro’s wife on various
occasions and that Zorro became aware of it through an unsigned letter
mailed to him by a mutual acquaintance.

Zorro Faces Mason

As we conversed, the grieving Johnny Zorro burst into the room to face the confessed killer.

Zorro, trembling, charged up to the chair where Mason was slouched.

"You remember when I introduced you to my wife," the musician cried. "You were a very lonely guy.

"You remember when we took you home," he went on, recounting incident after incident in the early days of their friendship.

"You were my best friend."

Pounding the table in front of Mason’s chair, Zorro shouted:

"You’ve ruined my wife’s life, my son’s life. My mother-in-law is gone."

Bolting up, Mason turned away. "I’ve had enough. I don’t have to listen."

"C’mon and face me." Zorro demanded. "Aren’t you man enough?"

Mason
walked away. Zorro, who had come to the station from Glendale Memorial
Hospital, where his wife had just been removed from the critical list,
followed.

A policeman pleaded, "Leave him alone, Johnny."

Zorro wheeled. "Leave HIM alone? After all this torture, you want me to leave HIM alone."

Again the musician turned to the suspect, challenging Mason’s claims of intimacy with his wife.

Wants Name Cleared

"She’s a very religious woman and you’re nothing but a liar. From the beginning, you’ve been a big lie.

"I want to get my wife’s name cleared right now.

"For my boy," he pleaded. "You like Paigie. Don’t let my son down. Don’t say anything that’ll hurt him."

Once during the scene, Mason pushed Zorro away.

"Don’t touch me," snarled the musician. "I’ll tell you something. After you beat up my wife, we got a gun in the house.

"To use if you ever came back," he added. "I’m just sorry we never got the chance."