Killer of Guitarist Dave Navarro’s Mother is Denied Appeal

John Riccardi has had his appeal against his life sentence for the killing of guitarist Dave Navarro’s mother and her friend three decades ago denied.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld John Riccardi’s prison term on Thursday after rejecting his attorney’s request to overturn his sentence and dismiss the case.
Riccardi was convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend, Connie Navarro, and Sue Jory in 1983 at a West Los Angeles condominium.
Navarro’s son, Dave, played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction. He was only 15 years old when his mother was murdered.

Riccardi originally was sentenced to death for the murders, but the California Supreme Court overturned the sentence two years ago after a prospective juror was wrongly dismissed for expressing conflicting views on the death penalty.
The convicted killer was re-sentenced last year to life without parole.

On March 3, 1983, Constance ‘Connie’ Navarro’s ex-boyfriend John Riccardi forced his way into her home in West Los Angeles and killed her and her friend Sue Jory.
Police later found 41-year-old Navarro’s body partially stuffed inside a linen closet.

Dave Navarro, then 15, was staying with his father on the night of the murders. Years later, the famed guitarist said Riccardi likely would have killed him too had he been in his mother’s apartment at the time.
‘So I really do believe that that’s some sort of divine intervention that I can’t explain,’ the rock star said.

After the killing, John Riccardi spent eight years on the run before he was finally arrested in Houston in January 1991 after the TV show America’s Most Wanted aired a segment about him.
During questioning, Riccardi admitted that he and Connie Navarro were on bad terms after their split, but he denied killing her, San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The victim’s son said that a week before his mother’s brutal killing, her jealous boyfriend broke into her home and handcuffed him at gunpoint, but Dave only reported the incident to police after Connie Navarro’s death.

In 1993, Riccardi was found guilty of two counts of murder and sentenced to death due to the heinous nature of the crimes, but the sentence was overturned in 2012 because of a problem with a juror.
The juror in question, identified only by the initials ‘N.K.’ in the ruling, wrote on the questionnaire that she supported California’s reinstatement of the death penalty and stated that it is not used enough.
But later in the questionnaire, the juror gave answers that suggest she opposes capital punishment.
‘I’m afraid I could not feel right in imposing the death penalty on someone even though I feel it is nessasary (sic) under some circumstances,’ N.K. wrote.

Dave Navarro, 47, the founding member of Jane’s Addiciton and Carmen Electra’s ex-husband, has publicly blamed his struggle with drugs, alcohol and depression that landed him in a hospital seven times on the tragic loss he experienced as a teenager.
He honoured his late mother by having the tattoo artist and reality star Kat Von D ink a portrait of Connie as a young woman on his left rib cage.