SIMI VALLEY : Friends Say Man Admitted Slaying

Two friends of John Robert Kilroy testified Tuesday that he told them that he had taken part in the fatal stabbing of a transient in Simi Valley six years ago.

But Kilroy, on trial in Ventura County Superior Court for murder and conspiracy to commit murder, took the witness stand to deny any part in the slaying.

Kilroy, 23, is accused in the slaying of Derek VanDusen, who was stabbed to death as he slept in an abandoned house on Patricia Street in January, 1986. A friend of the victim testified that VanDusen was an alcoholic who frequently slept in the house.

Investigators have charged Kilroy and another former Simi Valley resident, David A. Dunlap, 24, with murdering VanDusen in what they describe as a “thrill killing.” Ventura County Medical Examiner F. Warren Lovell testified that the victim was stabbed in the back 27 times.

Kilroy’s former girlfriend, Laura Barrett, testified that he told her that he “knew the face of death” because he and two other youths had taken turns stabbing a man. Kilroy told her that the victim was a “passed-out bum” whom they had encountered at the abandoned house.

Another friend of Kilroy’s, Louis Guthrie, testified that in 1986, Kilroy showed him a knife and said he had used it in a stabbing.

“He just said he and Dave and some other guy were out cruising and they came across this guy,” Guthrie said. “He said they broke a log over his back and took turns shanking him.”

Guthrie said he understood “shanking” to be a term for stabbing.

But on cross-examination, Guthrie said he could not remember exactly when Kilroy made the statement. The witness also acknowledged that he had probably been using drugs or alcohol or both on the night of the conversation.

Barrett said she too had used drugs during the period she knew Kilroy and might have been using them when he told her about the slaying.

Kilroy testified that he was with his sister in Antelope Valley when the slaying occurred.

Testimony is expected to conclude today. Judge Charles R. McGrath is hearing the case without a jury.

Dunlap is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 24. He and Kilroy were identified as suspects in 1988, investigators said, but they were not arrested until February for lack of evidence.