MURDER TRIAL WRAPPING UP; PROSECUTORS USE COMPUTERIZED CHARTS IN CLOSING ARGUMENTS.

Byline: Don Holland Daily News Staff Writer

Prosecutors presented a high-tech closing argument Thursday against slaying suspect Kenneth McKinzie, using computerized charts to highlight discrepancies between his testimony and incriminating statements made by two key witnesses.

Deputy District Attorney Donald Glynn's charts - the first time computer graphics have been used in a local murder trial - compared McKinzie's testimony that he wasn't involved in Ruth Avril's death, with testimony from two acquaintances who said he had confessed to killing the elderly woman.

``It's real easy to put together a phony story and remember the big details,'' Glynn told the nine-woman, three-man jury. ``But it's hard to remember the little details.''

Authorities say McKinzie, 39, helped Avril carry her Christmas tree into her apartment in December 1995, then attacked her in her garage. He then beat her, put her in the trunk of her car and drove her to an Oxnard drainage ditch, where he strangled her and dumped her body.

The defense maintains that McKinzie bought the dead woman's belongings from a street acquaintance and that McKinzie had no role in her murder.

Theresa Johnson, a former friend of McKinzie's, testified during the two-week trial that McKinzie told her he had beaten an elderly woman he knew, stole her belongings and dumped her body in a watery ditch. Prosecutors also introduced a transcript of another McKinzie friend, Ralph Gladney, who died before the start of the trial.

``So you have these two people independently corroborating each other,'' said Glynn. ``It's really a question of did Kenny lie or did Ralph and Theresa lie. And I think you know the answer to that.''

Defense attorney Wilard Wiksell conceded the prosecution's evidence is impressive.

``A fool would say that's not compelling evidence,'' Wiksell said. ``But it's not beyond a reasonable doubt.''

Wiksell said there is no evidence that ties McKinzie to the victim's house or to the ditch where her body was found. And when McKinzie went back to a friend's apartment about the time Avril was killed, he had no blood or mud on him, Wiksell said.

``There's not any evidence, except tainted, unreliable statements taken several years after the crime,'' he said.

Wearing a blue dress shirt, slacks and black patent leather shoes, McKinzie showed little outward emotion during the daylong proceedings. As he has done throughout the trial, he flashed a smile and winked at family members sitting in court.

McKinzie's charges include murder, kidnapping, residential robbery, burglary and two special circumstances - murder during a burglary and robbery - which could make him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.