A Vietnam War pilot who swooped a helicopter into a prison yard to help his girlfriend escape was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without possibility of parole for the contract murder of a Sausalito business executive.

Ronald McIntosh did not make a statement before San Mateo County Superior Court Judge John Bible sentenced him for the “cold-blooded killing committed in order to maintain a fraudulent operation.”

A jury deliberated six days in December before finding McIntosh guilty of first-degree murder in the 1984 slaying of Ronaldson Ewing. McIntosh also was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. The jury agreed with a special circumstances allegation that Ewing’s slaying was carried out for financial gain.

The judge denied a defense request to remove the special circumstances allegation.


McIntosh was one of three defendants prosecuted for the Ewing murder. He and Michael Anthony hired Drax Quartermain to kill Ewing over a conflict surrounding a criminal enterprise, according to San Mateo County Assistant Dist. Atty. Martin Murray.

Ewing’s bullet-riddled body was found on Montara State Beach in San Mateo County in May, 1985.

Investigators said Ewing was involved with McIntosh and Anthony in the now-defunct First Interstate Trading Co. of Mill Valley, a precious metal company that allegedly swindled investors out of $18 million.

Ewing was killed because he pressured McIntosh and Anthony for a larger share of company profits, Murray said.


Quartermain was sentenced to death in 1989 for his role in the slaying. Anthony was sentenced last May to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Murray said McIntosh’s attorney plans to appeal.

In 1987, McIntosh was sentenced to 25 years for air piracy and assisting an escape after hijacking a helicopter and using it to free his girlfriend from the Federal Correctional Institution at Pleasanton.

A week before the escape, McIntosh, a convicted con man, had disappeared during transfer to another prison. On Nov. 5, 1986, he commandeered a rented helicopter, landed in the prison yard and flew off with Samantha Lopez.


They were captured 10 days later in a Sacramento-area shopping mall while picking up a set of wedding rings.

Lopez, who was serving a 50-year term for a 1981 bank robbery in Georgia, was sentenced to an additional five years for escape. McIntosh, who had nearly completed a parole violation sentence, was given five years for aiding the escape and 20 years for armed air piracy.

McIntosh will serve his life sentence consecutively with his federal escape sentence until the latter is completed. He will then be transferred to San Quentin Prison to serve the rest of the life sentence, Murray said.