FATHER TO FACE SON'S KILLER AGAIN.

Byline: Steve Getzug Daily News Staff Writer

Roy Nelson last saw John Wayne Henderson 10 years ago in a Van Nuys courtroom when the Texas man was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for killing Nelson's son.

This week, Nelson will travel to Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City in hopes of making sure Henderson stays there.

In poor health and 73, the former Canoga Park man figures his trip to the maximum-security prison to attend Henderson's parole hearing will be the last time he can tell the convicted killer, face to face, what impact Ronnie Nelson's 1984 murder has had on him and his family.

Henderson, now 28, is not likely to be freed, given a prison conduct record that includes assaults, possession of drug paraphernalia and drug use.

Even if he had a better record, the Board of Prison Terms in 1995 approved the release of just nine of 2,160 ``life-termers'' seeking parole.

Because of his health, family members and Nelson's doctor have counseled him against making the trip from his home in Virginia. But Nelson is adamant.

``He's already proven himself as a hardened criminal since he murdered my son,'' Nelson said. ``For him to be released back into society to put another person's family through living hell, I don't think he deserves it.

``It's the last thing I've wanted to do in my life,'' he said, ``to just look at him one more time before I kick the bucket.''

Henderson hopes to show Nelson and a parole board that he's changed - grown now, no longer the violent Texas teen whose daylight robbery of an elderly woman in Van Nuys triggered Ronnie Nelson's murder.

``It's been 12-1/2 years since the death of Mr. Nelson,'' Henderson told the Daily News. ``I was 16 when I committed this terrible act, to say the least, I'm a different person now.

``I can truly say I'm very sorry for taking their son away from them.''

Nelson, a DWP worker who retired in 1983, is legally blind. His hearing aid went out and knee replacement surgeries and medical problems borne from German bullets during World War II gnaw at him daily.

But what preys most on Nelson is the Jan. 4, 1984, fatal shooting of his 26-year-old son and the hung jury at Henderson's trial that gives the inmate a chance of life outside prison walls.

Ten years hasn't dulled Nelson's pain in a case once trumpeted in newspaper headlines as the ``Good Samaritan killing.''

Grief and the pressures it created within Nelson's close family fractured his marriage. The family sold their Canoga Park home of 27 years and Nelson's wife and sons went their separate ways.

He lives alone now at the Elks National Home in Bedford, Va., where his meals and care are provided.

Lena Nelson, who lives in Nevada and has battled cancer since 1988, says her husband has not been able to move forward and heal.

``I have after a while learned to live with it. To remember the good things,'' says Lena Nelson, 66. ``Roy can't do that. There's lot of bitterness and hate. His son - his youngest - was taken from him.''

When Ronnie Nelson heard Rosalie Magee's scream and saw a teen-aged boy stick a gun to her head in a Van Nuys shopping center parking lot, there was little doubt the commercial painter would get involved.

He envied his older brothers, Dale and Roy Jr., both military veterans, and Ronnie had wanted to be a police officer or a firefighter. A leg injury, however, prevented the Panorama City man from doing so.

He did the next best thing he could, his father said, becoming a good Samaritan.

Twice before the January 1984 holdup, Ronnie Nelson had come to the aid of people in distress, earning kudos from police and city officials. Still, Roy Nelson warned him.

``Since he was the youngest, I kept my eye on him more than anything else cause he was running down purse snatchers,'' Nelson said recently. ``I told him to be careful because he was going to get the wrong one.''

He did.

Ronnie Nelson pursued the teen-ager on his motorcycle as the youth fled on foot. The robber, carrying the woman's purse, ran into an alley with Nelson close behind.

Police said the robber filed a single shot over his shoulder. The bullet went through Nelson's heart, killing him instantly.

Another witness wrestled with the robber, but managed only to strip him of a green high school letterman's jacket - a piece of evidence that led ultimately to John Wayne Henderson's arrest in Texas six months later.

Henderson had come to Los Angeles with three friends to look for work just days before the killing. He claimed at his murder trial in Van Nuys Superior Court that witnesses had mistaken him for one of his friends to whom he lent his Lake Worth (Texas) High School jacket that day.

A jury deadlocked 6-6 on Henderson's guilt after four days of deliberations.

Prosecutors planning to retry the case got a break one month later when a 22-year-old Texas man was found by LAPD detectives who said Henderson phoned him from Los Angeles County jail and admitted to the crime.

Faced with the new witness, Henderson, who had no prior criminal record, accepted the plea and acknowledged his role in the slaying.

Judge James A. Albracht ruled in 1986 that Henderson, then 18, was unsuitable for rehabilitation in the California Youth Authority and sentenced him to 15 years to life in prison.

``If he would not have helped,'' Henderson told a CYA official of Ronnie Nelson at the time, ``he still would have been alive.''

Roy Nelson vowed never to forget Henderson.

``I die over and over every day when I get up,'' Nelson said during Henderson's sentencing hearing.

Grief plays differently for people who lose family members to violent crime.

Families of victims notified of parole hearings for convicted killers often write letters to parole boards to express their views. Fewer of them travel to the prisons to testify in support or against prison inmates.

Some fail to follow the proceedings at all, partly to speed the healing process.

Roy Nelson says he's going so he can heal.

``I feel like I've been dealt a low blow,'' he said. ``I'm trying to work on this, keep my bitterness and anger under control. It's hard to do. It's like the whole family was struck a low blow.''

Nelson isn't sure what he's going to say to John Wayne Henderson, but he's got some ideas and counting the days until Wednesday's hearing.

``It'll come out in the right way to let him know how it makes a family feel to be broken up, a tight-knit family that couldn't get used to the empty plate at every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner,'' Nelson said.

Nelson said he'll ask how Henderson, who was married at 15, would feel if he saw his son lying in a coffin.

``How would he feel having one of his loved ones taken away,'' he said.

``(Henderson's) already proven himself as a hardened criminal,'' Nelson reasons. ``For him to ever be released into society to put another person's family through living hell, I don't think he deserves it.''

Roy Nelson's health was too fragile to attend Henderson's first parole hearing in 1994. A transcript from that hearing suggests Henderson has much to do to repair a checkered term at Pelican Bay that included assaults, drug use and possessing syringes and needles.

Henderson's lawyer for the upcoming hearing, Monterey attorney John McPherson, could not be reached for comment. But Henderson himself says he's made changes that make him suitable for release.

Mostly, the convicted killer understands the tragedy he created.

``I know what I did to the Nelson family was very wrong,'' he said in a statement from prison. ``I put them through a lot of suffering over the death of their son, Ronnie.''

``I just hope someday they will be able to forgive me for what I've done to them.''

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Photo: Roy Nelson