Jury Convicts Fugitive in 1982 Slaying : Courts: Sailmaker who fled to Philippines is found guilty of manslaughter in his cousin’s shooting death at a crowded airport bar.

A former Laguna Beach sailmaker who spent more than a decade on the run in Mexico and the Philippines was convicted Thursday of voluntary manslaughter in the 1982 shooting death of his cousin at a crowded John Wayne Airport restaurant bar.

Kelly Russell Daniels, 44, was caught about 10 months ago in the Philippines, where he had been living on a small island with his common-law wife and stepson and running a surf school.

Jurors said they didn’t find any evidence that Daniels planned to kill Barclay F. Hodges on June 8, 1982, and found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder.

“It was not a premeditated murder,” said juror Matt Hall of Costa Mesa. The Orange County Superior Court jury also found true an allegation that Daniels used a gun in the crime, an enhancement that can add additional prison time.

Defense attorney Marshall M. Schulman said he was pleased with the verdict. He had contended during the weeklong trial that Daniels had “exploded” in a drug- and alcohol-induced rage.

“He had the paranoid belief his first cousin, the victim, was having an affair with his estranged wife,” Schulman said. “He couldn’t take it.”

Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon set Daniel’s sentencing for Sept. 30. Because the killing took place in 1982, Daniels will be sentenced under 12-year-old guidelines and faces up to eight years in prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Brent said. If the crime were committed today, Daniels could face up to 16 years in prison if convicted of the same crime.

Brent had asked the jury to convict Daniels of second-degree murder, but said outside of court he would not quarrel with the guilty verdict on the less-serious count.

Brent said, however, he believes Daniels benefited from fleeing the country so many years ago, allowing evidence--especially witnesses’ memories--to grow stale. Brent said one witness who was reading over his 12-year-old statements to police had forgotten so many of the details he likened it to reading a novel, where he was the main character.

“It was ‘I don’t remember, I don’t recall,’ with every witness,” Brent said, who said the time lapse between the killing and the trial may also have dulled the jury’s reaction to the tragedy at hand. “That’s the problem with trying a murder case more than 10 years after the fact. I wish the case had been tried back then.”

In an unusual twist, Daniels did not face an additional penalty for fleeing the jurisdiction in 1982 because there was no law against it at the time, Brent said.

Schulman said during his closing argument that Daniels was high on cocaine and had a blood-alcohol level of at least .20 when the shooting took place. Daniels was so drunk he could not recall whether he even fired the fatal shot, the attorney said.

Schulman attacked the prosecution’s case on two fronts, arguing both that Daniels never intended to kill anyone but was acting under the influence of the drugs and alcohol and that there was still insufficient evidence to prove Daniels--and not someone with a grudge against Hodges--had committed the shooting.

Witnesses to the shooting told investigators that Daniels, Hodges and a third man had been sitting at a corner table at Delaney’s Restaurant for about six hours when shots were fired, sending panicked customers running.

Hodges, then 40 and facing charges of selling cocaine, was shot in the head. The victim was the brother of then-Westminster Councilman Guinn (Gil) Hodges.

Daniels was arrested at the scene and later pleaded not guilty and was released on $75,000 bail. After he failed to appear at his preliminary hearing, a U.S. magistrate issued a felony arrest warrant on Nov. 10, 1983. He has been held on $500,000 bail since he was rearrested in November.