Suspect Ordered to Stand Trial in Death of Reporter

A Santee man was ordered Wednesday to stand trial in the stabbing death of a newspaper reporter who was attempting to prevent an assault on his wife.

David Allan Weeding, 39, is to appear Aug. 17 in Superior Court for trial on charges of murder, attempted rape and residential burglary, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Les W. Dubow. He is being held at County Jail downtown in lieu of $1 million bail.

Weeding was arrested in late May in connection with the May 20 stabbing of Steve Petix, an education writer and special projects coordinator at the Californian, and with the attempted rape of Petix’s wife, Vickie.

Petix was stabbed in the couple’s second-floor apartment in El Cajon after he arrived home for lunch and found a man struggling with his wife. She escaped and called police, and Petix collapsed on the floor and died without regaining consciousness. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

At Wednesday’s preliminary hearing in El Cajon Municipal Court, Vickie Petix repeated earlier accounts of the attack, in which she suffered cuts and bruises.

She said she returned home from classes at Grossmont College at midday that Friday and called her husband, who said he would be home for lunch at about 1 p.m. At about that time, the doorbell rang, and a man dressed in work clothes told her he was there to check on reports of structural leaks in the building, she said. She identified Weeding as that man.

Vickie Petix, who remained calm throughout her testimony before Judge Larrie R. Brainard, said that, after leading the man to the bedroom to show him the site of a small leak, he grabbed her and attempted to rip off her clothes and rape her. Her husband then arrived home and “kicked at the hand with the knife in it,” she said.

Three days later, El Cajon police arrested Weeding in the parking lot of a Santee bar.

Sgt. Ed Forbes said papers left at the scene of the slaying provided the first clues.

“It was the writing on the papers that gave us a good idea of what direction to go, where to look,” Forbes said at the time. “They suggested that we look at car radiator repair shops.”