Wife Testifies in Murder Trial

The wife of a bisexual man stabbed to death in Balboa Park testified Thursday that she had reached a “compromise” with her husband about his sexual liaisons with young men.

With her two daughters quietly observing from the gallery, Barbara Hamilton testified as a defense witness that her husband, Michael Wayne Hamilton, had been making covert forays into the homosexual community for more than 20 years.

“He loved his family,” Hamilton said, explaining her husband’s secretiveness. “He loved the job he did. He was afraid of losing all that because of the prejudices people have.”

After her testimony, the accused man, Todd Everett Fluette, testified that there was no plan between him and another man to kill a homosexual in the park.

The 19-year-old Wisconsin man, a Navy hospital corpsman, is accused of slashing Hamilton’s throat and then stabbing him eight times during the early morning hours of Dec. 8 in an isolated section of the park that gay men are said to frequent. Fluette is also charged with a special circumstance of lying in wait that will lead to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if the jury convicts him of this allegation.

Fluette’s accomplice in the incident, 23-year-old David Allen Kring, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder one week ago and will be sent to prison for a term of 25 years to life when he is sentenced next month.

Fluette’s testimony appeared aimed at diffusing prosecution evidence, which included two taped confessions--one with investigators and one that was secretly recorded by another Navy corpsman at the Naval School of Health Services that indicates that the attackers “got the older man drunk and waited until the time was right.”

During the testimony, which was viewed by his visiting parents, Fluette said that Hamilton, a 48-year-old counselor at Jerabek Elementary School in Scripps Ranch, touched Fluette’s thigh with his foot. Then, the victim reached over and began touching David Allen Kring, he said.

“I couldn’t believe he was doing that,” Fluette said, adding that he was “repulsed” and “infuriated” because he had never seen a homosexual before.

Because Kring had no reaction, Fluette assumed he was completely drunk, so he pulled out a butterfly knife and swung at Hamilton, a move which slashed the man’s throat, according to the testimony.

Fluette also said that Hamilton “kept coming at me” after receiving the neck wound.