California’s top man is pondering today whether a con who buried a disabled boy alive after forcing the victim to dig his own grave while beating, stabbing and choking him, deserves parole now.
It’s an imminently pending release the murdered youth’s family and a handful of lawmakers hope Jerry Brown will give the thumbs down to, and one the governor is required to officially decide by midnight tonight.
Otherwise 52-year-old killer David Weidert will automatically be freed, following a parole board’s approval of his release earlier this year, after he served decades in federal prison for one of the most soulless and heinous crimes on record.
Weidert was convicted as a teen in the brutal torture and slaying of a mentally challenged 20-year-old who’d acted as his lookout in a robbery that netted a mere $500.
He said at the time that his motive for the unusually brutal murder was a fear that his victim would testify against him in a pending court trial.
But Michael Morganti’s death at Weidert’s hands in 1980 was so beyond horrific that county sheriff Martin Ryan described it as "a 45-minute scene of torture and hideous cruelty."
Morganti's sister, Vikki Van Duyne, has also condemned the prospect of Weidert now being a free man after such an unconscionable act of violence toward her trusting and defenseless brother.
She calls David Weidert, then and now, "an extra-special brand of psychopath."
The wannabe parolee is currently incarcerated at the Soledad Correctional Training Facility in California, anxiously awaiting word of Governor Brown’s decision, which is expected any hour.
