Youth Slain at Club Was Fleeing, 3 Testify

A youth shot to death during a fight at a Van Nuys teen-age nightclub had dropped the two-foot stick he was wielding and was running away when he was killed, witnesses said Wednesday.

Three witnesses testified at the start of the murder trial of 16-year-old Christopher D. Comete in Sylmar Juvenile Court that Comete shot 15-year-old Mark Miller as Miller and several other youths were fleeing, after Comete already had fired two shots at them.

Miller’s death on Aug. 17 was the worst of a series of problems police said they had been having at three teen-age nightclubs in the San Fernando Valley. Defense attorney Dennis Mulcahey has argued that Miller and his friends were members of Fight for Freedom, a gang of white youths, and that they had gone after Comete on the night of the shooting.

Comete, of Canoga Park, is charged with one count of murder. He has remained in custody at Sylmar Juvenile Hall since the shooting.

Phuong (Tony) Nguyen, 21, who allegedly helped Comete flee the scene after the shooting, has pleaded not guilty in Van Nuys Superior Court to a charge of acting as an accessory to an assault with a deadly weapon.

Wednesday’s testimony contradicted the claim by defense attorney Mulcahey at Comete’s preliminary hearing that Comete fired his gun only because he feared that Miller and several of his friends, wielding clubs and bottles, were going to harm him.

Miller’s 14-year-old girlfriend, Natalie Molnar, testified Wednesday that Comete and Miller had begun fighting two nights before Miller’s death because of a comment Comete had made about her purple hair.

After the youths were expelled from the club because of that fight, Comete told Miller: “Meet me after Hot Trax closes Friday night, and you’re going to get your head shot off,” adding that, if he didn’t “get” Miller, he would “get” his girlfriend, she said.

She testified that she tried to stop Miller from fighting Comete in the parking lot of the club early on the morning of Aug. 17, but that Miller gently nudged her aside, telling her, “It will be over in five minutes.”

The next two witnesses essentially corroborated the girl’s testimony that the shooting continued after Miller dropped his stick.

The second witness in the trial, Susan Bender, also said that she believed that the first two shots Comete fired were aimed at random, but that the third shot, which struck Miller, “seemed more like it was aimed at a person . . . one particular person.”

She said Comete pointed the gun in several directions before he began firing, apparently to ward off people who were approaching him.

A third witness, 15-year-old Toni Rivera, added that Comete pulled the gun out of a compartment on his moped only after one of Miller’s friends hit Comete in the head with his hand.