El Cajon

The widow of a newspaper reporter identified a Santee man in court Monday as the one who tried to rape her and then fatally stabbed her husband as he came to rescue her after coming home for lunch.

Testimony in the trial of David Weeding, 39, opened Monday in San Diego Superior Court after jury selection was completed in the potential capital-punishment case last week.

Weeding is accused of stabbing to death Steve Petix, 31, a senior writer for the Daily Californian, on May 20, 1988, and trying to rape his wife, Vickie, in their El Cajon apartment.

Weeding could be sentenced to death if a jury finds that he committed the slaying during a sex crime and a burglary.

Vickie Petix, 24, spoke calmly as she recounted the incident in her apartment. She said a man in a blue uniform, representing himself as a workman for the apartment complex, came to her door, saying he wanted to check for plumbing leaks.

Petix said she let the man inside and showed him a leak from the ceiling in her bedroom.

“He grabbed my arm . . . and he began to attack me,” she said. “I tried to run.”

Petix said the attacker put a knife close to her throat as she struggled and said, “Don’t you realize I could kill you?”

She said that, after all her clothing was removed, her husband walked in the door and exclaimed, “What’s going on? Get off her!”

“He went after my husband. I got up . . . and ran out the door. I hit the steps going down, screaming for help,” Petix said.

She said she called police from the apartment manager’s unit.

Petix told Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Whelan that she was “positive” of her identification of Weeding, in court and at a June 8 live line-up, as her attacker.

The trial continues today.