VAN NUYS : Man’s 2nd Trial Begins in Slaying

The second murder trial for a Fountain Valley man began Thursday with prosecutors telling a Van Nuys Superior Court jury that he killed his business partner so he could avoid sharing loot the pair had taken in a series of burglaries.

David Thayne Smith, 34, is charged in the slaying of Stefan Sweetser on Oct. 16, 1992, at a remote Tarzana construction site on Reseda Boulevard near Mulholland Drive.

The jury in Smith’s first trial deadlocked 6 to 6.

While Smith admits to being at the Reseda Boulevard site where Sweetser was shot five times, he maintains he had no idea that a killing was to take place. Smith told police that he and Sweetser, 23, robbed construction sites throughout the San Fernando Valley and sold the goods at Visions Door & Windows in Burbank, which both men owned.

An alleged third member of the burglary ring, Daniel Joseph Miller, 47, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in August after a jury in another trial convicted him of participating in Sweetser’s murder.

Miller was in court Thursday, sources said, apparently prepared to testify against his former crime partner. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Gloria Maria Mas did not mention Miller’s potential testimony during her opening statement.

Police recovered Sweetser’s blue pickup truck from a parking lot near the condominium Smith and Miller shared, and the victim’s wallet was discovered in a Huntington Beach storage facility that Smith rented, Mas said.