Harbison Canyon

Herman (Rock) Kreutzer testified Monday that his son-in-law pointed a gun at him and his son moments before Kreutzer shot him to death, but the rancher had no explanation why no gun was found with the body.

Kreutzer, 48, concluded his testimony in his murder trial before San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Perry Langford. More defense witnesses will be called today.

Kreutzer told the jury he shot James Spencer, 32, in defense of his son’s life and his own. The shooting took place April 11, 1984, in a garage on Kreutzer’s Big Oak Ranch in Harbison Canyon.

The jury visited the ranch Monday. Jurors hiked up a hill through heavy brush and over two barbed-wire fences to the spot where the ranch’s former security guard, Larry Stilwell, said he witnessed the shooting.

The jury also was paraded to a large bush on a hill overlooking the garage from where Stilwell, 47, claimed he saw Spencer begging for his life on his knees before Rock and Jerry Kreutzer.

Kreutzer’s attorney, C. Logan McKechnie, has claimed that Stilwell could not have witnessed the shooting from that spot. Stilwell has also testified that he moved out of the brush and stood closer to the garage but only a small section of the garage could be seen from that viewpoint.

Kreutzer testified that he and son Jerry, 28, who is also charged with murder, picked up Spencer the day of the shooting at an El Cajon bar and took him to the ranch to pick up his tools. Spencer had just been released from jail on an unrelated matter.

Kreutzer then testified that Spencer came at him with a gun, and that he emptied his gun on Spencer in self-defense.

“Did you shoot your son-in-law while he was begging for his life on his knees?” asked McKechnie.

“No,” said Kreutzer. “That’s crazy. . . . He did not beg.”