San Diego

The attorney for a 17-year-old murder defendant admitted Thursday that the youth stabbed actor David Huffman, but said his client left the dying man in the belief that he was not seriously wounded.

Huffman, who appeared in the movies “F.I.S.T.,” “Firefox” and “The Onion Field,” was killed Feb. 27 in Balboa Park. Schoolchildren on a nature walk found Huffman’s body in a park canyon, not far from the Old Globe Theatre, where he was starring in the stage production “Of Mice and Men.”

On trial in Huffman’s slaying is Genaro Samano Villanueva, an illegal alien who was living with relatives in San Diego at the time of the killing.

Villanueva allegedly was fleeing after attempting to break into a car when the 40-year-old Huffman caught up with him in the canyon.

“There’s a struggle and Genaro stabs the man,” defense attorney Allan Williams said during opening arguments. “He doesn’t know the man. He doesn’t think he killed the man. He doesn’t think he hurt him too bad.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Harry Elias told the Superior Court jury that Huffman was stabbed four times with a screwdriver.

He said Villanueva had been arrested on two previous occasions for burglarizing cars and had a screwdriver on him both times. One of the arrests came hours before the slaying, but Villanueva was released after a brief detention.

According to Elias, Huffman had come to the aid of park visitors after seeing a person break into their motor home and flee.

The visitors saw Huffman give chase, but they left the park after Huffman failed to return. They contacted police after reading news accounts of Huffman’s slaying the next day.

Elias said Villanueva’s fingerprints matched those found in the motor home and on a television set that the burglar had abandoned on the front seat.

After Villanueva’s arrest, Elias said, the youth admitted to police that he had broken into the motor home and had been looking for something to steal.

Villanueva, who is being tried as an adult, has been held in lieu of $250,000 bail since his arrest.