Suspect, Dead Boy Linked by Friend

A friend of murder suspect Timothy Wilson testified Monday that he saw Wilson carrying a 3-year-old boy who was later found stabbed to death.

The testimony came in the preliminary hearing of Wilson, 22, of Spring Valley, who is charged with killing Luke Mackey on Aug. 13 by stabbing and strangling him. Wilson is also charged with forcible oral copulation with the boy.

“Tim was carrying a kid with him,” said Jack Bates, 22. “I asked him if he was baby-sitting and he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Bates identified the boy as Luke Mackey, whose picture he saw in the newspaper several days later. The boy had been left in a car in front of a grocery store at Spring Valley Shopping Center by his mother’s boyfriend, Roddy Proctor, 41. The boy apparently was taken from the car.

Proctor and the boy’s mother, Dorothy Mackey, of Spring Valley, testified Monday. They have since separated.

Wilson initially reported finding the boy in a trash bin at the shopping center and was not arrested until several days later.

Proctor admitted he lied to his girlfriend and to sheriff’s deputies when he initially told them he had lost the boy in the store. “I was afraid that if I said I left him in the car that it would be worse than if I (lost) him in Vons,” Proctor said.

Criminologist Charles Merritt Jr., testified that blood found on a knife in Wilson’s van was consistent with Type-O blood. The boy’s blood is Type O, and Wilson’s is Type A, Merritt said.

Wilson had been living in his van, which was parked at a car wash near the shopping center.

The hearing is to conclude today with more testimony from Proctor before San Diego Municipal Judge Robert Stahl.