Local News in Brief : 18-Year-Old Killer Gets Youth Authority Term
An 18-year-old Canoga Park man was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in the California Youth Authority for the Feb. 8, 1985, stabbing death of a Sepulveda woman who purportedly ridiculed him after they had sex.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Robert M. Letteau imposed the maximum sentence of 11 years for voluntary manslaughter on Stephen Alan Naquin and added a year because Naquin used a knife in the attack on 19-year-old Dana Phleger.
However, by state law, Naquin, who was 17 at the time of the killing, can be released whenever the authority determines that he has been rehabilitated, and he cannot be held beyond age 25.
In imposing the sentence, Letteau said he hopes that the authority will decide to keep Naquin confined until he is 25.
Naquin testified during the non-jury trial in October that he flew into a rage after Phleger told him he was an inadequate lover. Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Cohen argued, however, that Naquin forced himself on Phleger and killed her when she resisted.
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