Murder Trial Set for Ex-Postal Worker

A judge decided Wednesday that ex-postal worker Mark Hilbun will stand trial on May 6, three years to the date he is accused of killing his mother and a colleague in a 38-hour rampage that terrorized Orange County.

Hilbun, 41, faces two counts of murder, seven counts of attempted murder and several other felonies stemming from a 1993 crime spree at the Dana Point postal office where he once worked and other locations across the county. The San Juan Capistrano man has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Defense attorneys have said that Hilbun was mentally incompetent at the time of the crimes.

Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty for Hilbun, say they believe he planned the 1993 crime spree and knew exactly what he was doing.

Hilbun admitted the crimes, telling police after his arrest that, “I’m the soul, I’m a sun in the sky and I’m trapped here in this body,” according to court papers filed by the prosecution.

He told police he stabbed his mother, Francis Nell Hilbun, to death as she slept in her Newport Beach home, and slit the throat of her dog, so she would not have to suffer “catastrophe” on Mother’s Day, according to the court records.

He also told police he went to the post office to save a female co-worker he had been stalking for more than a year because, “they were chosen as husband and wife of the human race,” the records show.

Postal worker Charles Barbagallo was shot to death inside the office, while others were injured in robberies and attempted robberies later in the day.

The trial is expected to last through the summer and will be broken into three phases: guilt, sanity and punishment.

If jurors find Hilbun guilty and sane when the crimes occurred, they will then recommend whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. If found insane, he would be sent to a state mental hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Hilbun had been scheduled for trial in early March before Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey, but that date was delayed because of a scheduling conflict with the second penalty trial for Edward Charles III, convicted last month of killing his parents and brother.