VAN NUYS : Deliberations Start in Man’s Murder Trial

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury began deliberations Wednesday in the murder trial of a Fountain Valley man accused of executing an alleged criminal associate near a Tarzana construction site.

Daniel Joseph Miller, 47, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the Oct. 16 killing of Stefan Sweetser, 23, who was shot five times in the back of the head and back at close range.

Miller and his roommate, David Thayne Smith, 34, were arrested one week after the killing. Smith’s trial will begin after Miller’s.

Evidence presented at Miller’s trial suggested that all three men had been burglarizing San Fernando Valley construction sites and using a Burbank business that Smith and Sweetser owned, Visions Windows & Doors, to sell the stolen goods.

Prosecutors believe Miller and Smith wanted to split up to $80,000 in computer equipment they had stolen, and $30,000 in Sweetser’s private bank account. Police recovered Sweetser’s private computer containing his bank records, all of the stolen computer equipment and Sweetser’s wallet in a Huntington Beach storage facility that Smith and Miller had rented under assumed names.

“This case is about money and murder,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gloria Marie Mas.

Defense attorney Ezekial Perlo told the jury during his closing argument that Miller, at the most, is an accessory to murder because he testified that Smith pulled the trigger and he had no idea there was to be a killing.

“Find Daniel Miller guilty of what he did do and not what he didn’t do,” Perlo said.