The Region - News from March 15, 1987

Two young men were sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison for helping a friend strangle his mother and for the attempted murder of his little brother. Richard Allen Parker, 24, and Matthew Adam Jay, 19, had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 1985 death of Shirley Rizk of Canoga Park, and the attempt to kill Rory Rizk, 8. Torran Lee Meier, 17, the slain woman’s other son, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter last June and has been committed to the custody of the California Youth Authority--at least until his 25th birthday. A jury concluded that years of verbal abuse by his mother led him into an emotional breakdown that made him incapable of premeditation or malice.