Recent Posts in MURDER Category

Update:

Suzanne Amelia Carlson, the 27-year-old Mission Viejo woman on trial in the  Orange County Superior Court on charges related to a 2007  DUI crash which killed her passenger, was convicted of second degree murder.  Her sentencing, at which she will face 15 years to life in prison, has been set for June 2010.

Update:

The 22-year-old college student from Costa Mesa previously arrested in connection with a fatal  DUI accident on Valentine’s Day has been charged in the  Orange County Superior Court with 2 ^nd degree murder, felony as well as  misdemeanor  hit-and-run and possession of cocaine.   

The man, who has a prior driving under the influence conviction from 2006, is alleged to have struck a Toyota Tundra after running a red light, killing the 20-year-old female passenger and injuring the driver.  He is said to have then  fled the scene and was later apprehended hiding in a nearby neighborhood.

According to reports, the man’s blood alcohol level was determined to be 0.17 percent. A small amount of  cocaine was also found in his pocket.   

Prosecutors announced the prior drunken driving conviction factored into their decision to file a charge of murder, rather than vehicular manslaughter, as he was aware of the danger yet chose to drive anyway.        

Trial is underway in the Orange County Superior Court in a  fatal DUI case which killed a 26-year-old ice hockey player and former figure skater from Fullerton.    

Brittany Schuetz, who has a prior drunken-driving conviction and whose  blood alcohol level at the time of this crash is alleged to have been .24 percent, stands accused of second-degree murder in the 2009 death of April Whang.  According to prosecutors, on the night of the incident, Schuetz ignored her friends’ pleas to not drive after consuming several drinks at a party in Sherman Oaks and instead got behind the wheel of her car to drive from Whittier to her Santa Ana home.

Prosecutors claim Schuetz ran through a red light at a La Habra intersection, slamming into Whang’s vehicle as it proceeded through a green light.  The impact threw Whang into the cargo area of her car.  Whang died at the scene of multiple traumatic injuries.  Schuetz, meanwhile, was found by police sitting in the driver’s seat of her car.  She allegedly had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath,  bloodshot and watery eyes and was unable to answer simple questions.       

If convicted, Schuetz faces 15 years to life in prison.       

Update: According to reports, the defendant has been released from prison after accepting the prosecutor’s offer of manslaughter with time served.

Nearly twenty six years after being sentenced to 17 years to life in prison at age 18, a Newport Beach man convicted of 2^nd degree murder for the 1984 killing of his male roommate has been granted a new trial.

The reprieve came as a result of a California law, newly passed in 1999, which now allows a defendant to use evidence of “intimate partner battering” to mitigate the degree of certain murders. The law, analogous to “battered woman syndrome”, extends to same-sex couples the right to use evidence of psychological trauma inflicted by a victim through physical or emotional abuse as a partial defense.

At his original trial, the defendant asserted he stabbed the victim over 30 times in self-defense after the victim, more than 10 years his senior, attempted to sodomize him at knifepoint.  Further, the defendant claimed the victim had previously made numerous unsolicited sexual advances toward him and may also have raped him one time while he was unconscious.  In need of food, shelter as well as a steady supply of cocaine to feed his addiction, however, the youthful defendant stayed with the man. 

Without the support of this new law, the defense attorney was forced at the time to argue for a straight acquittal rather than attempting to get a lesser verdict of voluntary manslaughter.   

A man who pled guilty in the Orange County Superior Court to attempted murder was sentenced to 5 years in state prison.

The case stemmed from a 2004 incident in Huntington Beach wherein an argument between three men over marijuana sales led to one man sustaining a gunshot wound from a small-caliber firearm.  Although, the victim was initially uncooperative, Huntington Beach police persisted in the investigation, including conducting surveillance and executing search warrants, and three years later succeeded in arresting the two suspects. 

The second suspect was convicted by a jury of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, use of a firearm, possession of a loaded/concealed firearm as well as gang and weapon enhancements.  He is expected to be sentenced next month.