Molestation-Murder Case Goes to Jury

A jury on Wednesday began deliberations in the murder trial of James Lee Crummel, charged with the 1979 slaying of a Costa Mesa 13-year-old boy and a special allegation of molestation that could subject him to a death sentence.

Crummel, 60, is already serving a 60-years-to-life sentence for the molestation of another boy from Orange County.

A Riverside County prosecutor argued in his closing statement that Crummel murdered James Trotter in April 1979 and then claimed to find his bones near Ortega Highway in 1990. Seven years later, authorities who had investigated Trotter’s disappearance and Crummel’s criminal past arrested him on suspicion of murder.