SAN DIEGO : Park Stabbing Case Headed for Jury

A Navy corpsman accused of stabbing to death a bisexual man in Balboa Park is guilty of murder because he planned the attack, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

“Would a reasonable person stab somebody eight times and slash their throat?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Gordon Paul Davis asked the jury in closing arguments.

The Superior Court jury is expected to begin deliberating the guilt or innocence of Todd Everett Fluette, 19, today. Fluette and another Navy man, David Allen Kring, 23, are accused of conspiring to kill Michael Wayne Hamilton, 48, on Dec. 8.

“Their conspiracy was to go out, get drunk and kill” a homosexual, Davis said.

Defense attorney Joseph Kownacki told the jury in his closing argument that malice was not used and that there was no evidence of conspiracy.

He said Fluette tried to walk away from Hamilton when the victim approached him in the park, but Hamilton followed Fluette and Kring.

“This is 4 o’clock in the morning. Was he desperate?” Kownacki said, referring to Hamilton’s habit of seeking homosexual encounters in the park.

Fluette testified during the trial that he stabbed Hamilton in self-defense when the school counselor touched him and then began touching Kring.

“It’s not against the law to go to a park,” Davis said. “It is to kill somebody. That is an overt act.”

The jury is also considering a special circumstance allegation that Fluette was lying in wait when the murder was committed. If the jury convicts him of this allegation, he would receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Kring, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder one day before the trial began, will be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison next month.