COURT UPHOLDS GUILT IN SLAYING.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - An appellate court has upheld a Palmdale man's conviction for burning to death his cab driver ex-girlfriend, despite concluding that some evidence should have been excluded from his trial.

Ryan O'Neal Willis was sentenced in 2002 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering 28-year Crystal Angelica Stahl, whose body was found Jan. 6, 2000, in the back seat of a burning cab in a Palmdale church parking lot.

Willis had challenged the trial judge's decision to allow testimony that a trained scent dog linked him to a matchbook found near the cab, arguing that ``this unreliable yet highly prejudicial evidence'' deprived him of a fair trial.

``Given the compelling evidence of appellant's history of violence toward the victim, his announced intention to burn her to death in her taxicab, and the taxicab dispatcher's absolute certainty that appellant was the last person that Stahl picked up shortly before her death, it is not reasonably probable that the jury would have reached a different result had the dog scent evidence been excluded. Any error in admitting the evidence must be deemed harmless and is not a cause for reversal. There was no miscarriage of justice,'' the appeals court ruling said.

The state 2nd District Court of Appeal judges said there was abundant evidence pointing to Willis' guilt, including evidence of past abuse.

``Co-workers and friends saw bruises and bite marks on Stahl's face, arms and neck. Stahl's foster mother saw appellant attack Stahl. A few weeks before Stahl was murdered, a friend tried to intervene while appellant was beating up Stahl and heard appellant warn Stahl that she would 'never' leave him. The police arrested appellant for domestic violence in mid-December 1999, after appellant attacked and bit Stahl when she refused to allow him into her apartment,'' the ruling said.

Stahl broke up with Willis in the weeks preceding her death, and he was angry that she had him arrested and was seeing another man, the ruling said.

Witnesses heard Willis declare that he was going to burn Stahl to death in her taxicab and avoid blame because taxicab drivers are regularly killed, according to the ruling.

A taxi dispatcher recognized Willis' voice as the person who asked that Stahl personally pick him up at a gas station called The Pit Stop, which is 1 1/2 miles away from the church where's Stahl's body was found, the ruling said.

Investigators used a bloodhound named Scarlet to try to link the killing to Willis by using scent from a minimart matchbook found at the crime scene. Scarlet was trained to jump on the person being tracked.

After Willis was arrested, Scarlet went up to him in the sheriff's station and sat in his lap, the ruling said.

The ruling said the dog handler who testified for the prosecution was not a scientist or an engineer and therefore not qualified to testify about the dog-scent evidence.

``We agree that the dog scent evidence was improperly admitted because it lacked foundation and scientific proof of reliability. Nevertheless, the error was harmless because there is no reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different result had the dog scent evidence been excluded,'' the ruling said.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com