Jury Convicts Man in Killing of Girlfriend

A Van Nuys man was convicted of first-degree murder Friday for stabbing and then strangling his girlfriend after discovering her in bed with her doctor in her Thousand Oaks condominium last October.

The unanimous verdict, delivered by a Ventura County Superior Court jury after little more than a day of deliberation, qualifies Timothy J. Velasco for 25 years to life in prison, with an additional year on the sentence because he used a knife in the attack. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 10.

“I am enormously relieved,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Nelson said. “This is the only appropriate verdict.”

After the verdict was read, Velasco turned and waved to what appeared to be family members before being led from the courtroom by a bailiff, a witness said.

Velasco, 22, became the key witness in the trial through a videotape that police made 10 hours after the slaying in which he described in detail how he killed 37-year-old Ellen Cleary after finding her having sex with Dr. Don Alan Lee, a Westlake Village cardiologist and Cleary’s own physician.

Nelson said the 40-minute videotape, which was played for the jury, was a key element in the murder conviction.

“His description of the murder ultimately corroborated with all of the evidence” surrounding Cleary’s death, Nelson said. “It was the defendant’s own words” that helped the jury reach its verdict, she added.

“There was a real pitch by the defense to feel sorry for him because he was not cold and calculated,” Nelson said. “He wasn’t. He was warm and calculated.”

In his closing comments to the jury, Judge Steven Z. Perren credited the videotape with simplifying the trial.

“It is rare that you have the issue so distilled out, so cleanly presented,” he said. “To you, the issue wasn’t what physically happened but what emotionally happened.”

During the trial, Nelson argued that Velasco had premeditated the murder, although it happened only an hour after he discovered Cleary and Lee in bed.

Deputy Public Defender William McGuffey tried to argue that the slaying was voluntary manslaughter, saying his client had acted in the heat of passion. He told the jury that Velasco was frustrated with Cleary’s drug and alcohol addictions.

Cleary was stabbed twice in the throat by Velasco an hour after Lee left the residence on Oct. 4. When Cleary tried to stop the flow of blood with a towel, Velasco strangled her, tied three plastic bags around her face and then put her in the bathtub and filled it before he left the condominium.

Shortly after leaving the condominium, Velasco met with a former adviser at Independence Continuation High School in Van Nuys, where he was once a student. He then turned himself in to authorities.