EX-DEPUTY WILL SERVE 25 TO LIFE 'I DID NOT KILL MY WIFE,' RACZ TELLS THE JUDGE.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

SAN FERNANDO -- A former sheriff's sergeant and schoolteacher convicted of killing his wife broke his silence Friday, professing his innocence before a judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.

Saying he always tried to be a "good husband," John Racz told Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen that he was wrongly convicted.

"She's still my wife, and when my wife left ... she left on her own," he said. "I did not kill my wife."

Coen was not swayed.

"This case is a horrific example of greed and control gone awry," he said to Racz. "You have made many victims besides Miss Racz. You are a murderer. How tragic."

The sentencing wrapped up a case that 16 years ago left three Santa Clarita Valley children without a mother, and now, essentially, leaves the young adults without a father.

Racz, 61, did not testify during his two-month trial. Even though investigators failed to produce the body of his wife, Ann Mineko Racz, or a murder weapon, prosecutors used circumstantial evidence to convict the Valencia man.

The couple's three adult children were in court for Friday's sentencing but did not address the judge. Wearing an orange jump suit, Racz turned to his children and smiled when he entered the courtroom.

Glenn Racz was 11 when his mom disappeared. He testified during trial that he was biased toward his father, and on Friday said he was still "processing through things" instead of passing judgment.

But he also said he was not upset by the sentence.

"That's what the court has found, and I accept that," he said.

The couple's oldest daughter, Joann, 31, cried when her father spoke in his own defense. She declined to comment after the hearing.

Ann Racz's nieces and her brother also shed tears as they spoke to the judge of the painful absence they have felt since her disappearance in April 1991, when she was 42. The court reporter even choked back tears.

The victim's sister, Emi Ryan, who was 12 years older than her sister, spoke in calm, measured tones.

"The only mercy I ask for John is that he lives a long life, which he will spend behind bars," she said, "and that he think about his life during that time."

Several jurors came back to court to watch the sentencing. Also in the packed courtroom were Louie Danoff and Frank Salerno, the original Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department homicide investigators on the case.

Signs of a struggle

During the trial, prosecutors and witnesses described Ann Racz as a committed family woman. Jurors heard testimony from her friends, who said she feared that her husband would kill her if she tried to leave him.

Three witnesses also testified to seeing scratches on John Racz in the days after she disappeared, suggesting that there could have been a struggle with his wife.

Prosecutors acknowledged from the start that their case was circumstantial. But they pointed to John Racz's own inconsistent statements as strong evidence that he killed his wife April 22, 1991, after following her in his car when she drove off.

After the trial, a few jurors also said the inconsistent statements -- which Racz made to investigators and to Ann's relatives -- helped prove his guilt.

Racz was indicted last year by a grand jury. Over the years, investigators conducted 36 searches for his wife's remains and never found anything, which contributed to the delay in taking the case to trial.

But at the start of the investigation, detectives did learn that her car was parked at the Van Nuys FlyAway lot for Los Angeles International Airport.

Prosecutors argued that John Racz put the car there himself to make it seem like his wife had skipped town. Defense attorneys responded that if he was at the FlyAway lot, it was only to move the car to the shade.

In his address to the judge, Racz seemed to refer to the episode, saying: "When I parked the car ..." But Racz's attorney, Philip Israels, reached over to his client, who then changed the subject and proclaimed his innocence.

Outside the courtroom, Israels said he assumed that Racz was talking about moving the car to the shade, but that he interrupted him because he didn't want to get into the case's specifics at the sentencing.

The food was cold

Racz joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1973 and left in 1985 after rising to the rank of sergeant. Before and after his time with the department, he was a public-school teacher in Compton. He raised his children and never remarried, retiring from teaching in 2001.

Prosecutors argued that he killed his wife out of anger over an affair and to avoid splitting money in a divorce.

Taking the children with her, Ann Racz moved out of the family's home on Fortuna Drive on April 18, 1991, and into a nearby condo she was renting from the owners. The next day, John Racz was served with divorce papers.

The afternoon of April 22, she returned to the home with the children, and witnesses said they saw her and her husband talking in the driveway.

She drove off alone to get a snack for the children at McDonald's just a few minutes away. Neighbors testified to seeing him drive off after she left, and that he looked as if he could have been following her.

The Racz children testified that their mother never returned that day. Before he left, their father said he was going to McDonald's instead of her, according to Joann Racz's testimony.

Although she testified she was unsure how long he was gone, she said when her father finally came home, the food from McDonald's was cold.

'Cruelty of it all'

In 2000, Ann Racz's mother died nine years after her daughter disappeared. Up until her death, she would often ask what happened to Ann, said Ryan, the victim's sister.

Speaking to the judge, Ryan summed up one of the case's many tragic elements.

"They say that a parent should never have to bury her children," Ryan said. "Well, Mom survived and outlived Ann, her youngest daughter. And the cruelty of it all is she never got to bury Ann."

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Former sheriff's Deputy and teacher John Racz professed his innocence before he was sentenced in the slaying of his wife 16 years ago.