Classmate Says Two Sailors Talked About Slaying in Park

A classmate of two Navy corpsmen accused of killing a school counselor in Balboa Park last December testified Monday that the defendants confessed to the killing the day the body was found.

William Jay Baker, who was studying at the Naval School of Health Science in Balboa Park, said that David A. Kring and Todd E. Fluette, who are charged with one count of murder, brought him to the site where the slaying took place, but they did not examine the body because another person was in the area.

During his testimony, Baker quoted Kring as saying, “Fluette cut his throat and stabbed him in the chest.”

Michael Wayne Hamilton, 48, was stabbed to death in Balboa Park in an area police say is frequented by homosexual men. His body was discovered Dec. 8 in bushes underneath the Laurel Street Bridge.

Hamilton’s body was the third discovered in the same area during a five-week period.

Kring, 23, and Fluette, 18, were arrested after allegedly bragging about killing a homosexual.

During a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court, Baker testified that both men told him how they went to Balboa Park and were approached by a man near the Laurel Street Bridge. The two defendants invited the man into a nearby canyon to drink, Baker said.

“Kring and Fluette both told me how they had met a faggot in the park,” Baker testified.

While sitting on the side of the canyon overlooking California 163, Kring and Fluette pretended to drink, and their companion drank a great deal, Baker said.

Baker told Municipal Judge Lillian Y. Lim that, according to Fluette, the man started to touch Kring’s leg. Kring told Baker that Fluette stabbed the man, Baker testified.

After reporting his conversation with Kring and Fluette to the Naval Investigative Service, Baker was introduced to San Diego Police Department homicide investigators, who asked him to wear a radio transmitter that would record a conversation with Kring and Fluette.

A tape recording of the conversation was played in court Monday. On the tape, Fluette is heard creating an excuse for being involved in a killing: “We were in the park drinking and the faggot approaches . . . he had his pants down.”

Kring and Fluette are both being held in lieu of $2-million bail. Their preliminary hearing is expected to conclude today.