Ex-Cadet Convicted in Transient’s Knife Death

Jurors convicted a former military student of second-degree murder Tuesday for the brutal stabbing of a transient killed while the teen-ager and a friend were on a midnight patrol seeking Latino youths.

David Kenneth Kurtzman, 18, who had gone to Northwestern Preparatory School in hopes of raising his grades enough to win a U.S. Naval Academy appointment, faces a possible 16-years-to-life prison sentence. The Palo Alto resident will be sentenced April 18.

Prosecutors charged that Kurtzman and a classmate, James (Rusty) Tramel, 18, of Victoria, Tex., assaulted a 29-year-old transient they confronted at a park on Aug. 4.

The two students, dressed in dark clothing and armed with a combat knife, had set out on a midnight patrol in search of Latino youths who reportedly had harassed some of their classmates.

Kurtzman told the jurors that while searching for the Latinos they spotted a transient lying inside a gazebo, listening to his radio.

‘Jerked Up, Scared Me’

“I didn’t see him until I was halfway up (the stairs),” Kurtzman said. “He jerked up and he kind of scared me. The guy started swearing at us a little bit.”

Authorities said Tramel mistakenly identified the victim, Michael Craig Stephenson, as one of the Latinos. Kurtzman testified that he attacked the man without provocation, noting that the victim had pleaded with him, “No, my friend, no . . . .”

“Before I knew it, it was over,” Kurtzman said. “I attacked him.”

Tramel, who faces a separate murder trial, is due in court Friday for a pretrial appearance.

Kurtzman’s verdict ended five days of seesaw deliberations for the panel of eight men and four women. Last Friday, the jury acquitted Kurtzman of the first-degree murder charge that had been filed against him.

The jurors then reported a deadlock, but Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Bruce W. Dodds ordered them to continue deliberating over the objections of Kurtzman’s lawyer, Terry Cannon.

Cannon said he will appeal the conviction.

Lawyer Cites Objections

“I feel that if the judge had indicated to the jurors they could consider manslaughter, we might have had a manslaughter verdict,” Cannon said. “They should have been allowed to consider all of the choices at one time.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Calvert said he is pleased with the verdict.

“I think the most difficult part was to convince the jury that the kid who looks like your paperboy, who has a prior record of having a good upbringing, could do this act,” Calvert said.

On the one hand, Kurtzman’s friends had described him as a model youth who was peaceful and honest and got along well with others. But Kurtzman testified he belonged to a secret society known as The Nine, a group patterned after a similar clique depicted in “The Lords of Discipline,” a movie about a military school. The Nine vowed to run for class office, protect and defend each other.