California IN BRIEF : VENTURA : Undertaker to Stand Trial for Murder

A Ventura County Municipal Court judge on Wednesday ordered a murder trial for David Wayne Sconce, a former Pasadena undertaker accused of poisoning rival mortician Timothy Waters, 24, with oleander in 1985. Waters died at his parents’ Camarillo home. Prosecutors allege that Sconce, now 34, spiked Waters’ drink with oleander at an unnamed restaurant, but they admitted Wednesday they have no proof the men ever saw each other around that time. The order came less than a week after Sconce finished a prison term for charges dealing with the illegal operation of his family’s Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena. Sconce was jailed after pleading guilty in 1989 to charges that he conducted mass cremations and sold gold teeth removed from bodies, and that he paid two men to beat Waters for spreading word of the violations among Los Angeles County undertakers.