2 Men Stabbed, 1 Fatally, in Early Morning Attack

An unidentified attacker stabbed a 24-year-old Moorpark man early Tuesday morning, leaving him to die on a blood-spattered midtown sidewalk.

Robert Louis Bankson died shortly before 2 a.m. in the 100 block of North Laurel Avenue, despite the efforts of a physician who happened to be buying ice cream at a nearby convenience store for his emergency-room staff at the time.

The slain man was a 1992 graduate of Adolfo Camarillo High School and had attended Moorpark College. In 1996, Bankson gave his mother a lottery ticket that made her a millionaire.

A friend of Bankson who was also attacked during the incident, 22-year-old Joseph Morgan of Oxnard, received stab wounds to the chest and was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, police said. He was listed in serious but stable condition.

Earlier in the evening, the pair had attended a concert by the group Phish at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. Then they went to a party at the Villa Laurel apartments.

As they left, a man approached and began punching Bankson, said Ventura Police Lt. Don Arth. When Morgan tried to break up the fight, both men were stabbed by a second assailant, Arth said.

Morgan struggled to the nearby Circle K convenience store--where the doctor was shopping--to seek aid, Arth said.

“We don’t have a motive,” Arth said. “There’s no indication the suspects were attending the party at this point in time. We don’t know at this point in time whether or not the victims and the suspects knew each other prior to the attack.”

Bankson and Morgan did not appear to have been robbed, police said.

After the stabbing, the assailants--described only as two males in their late teens to early 20s--ran north toward Poli Street, said a nearby resident who asked not to be identified.

“I heard a big ol’ scuffle,” he said, adding that he and a roommate called police and then tried to help the mortally wounded Bankson. “When the cops pulled up, he was taking his last breath.”

Bankson appeared to have received at least one stab wound to the back and another to the eye, he said.

Police are asking anyone with information about the attack to call Sgt. George Morris at 339-4474 or Det. Bob Slay at 339-4463.

Around midday, several of Bankson’s friends laid flowers on the sidewalk. They refused to discuss the incident.

“I just lost a really good friend,” said one young man.

Bankson’s mother, Marilyn Hodge, also declined to discuss the death of her oldest son.

Hodge is on a leave of absence from her job as a supervisor at a Camarillo drugstore after winning $1 million in April 1997 in the California Lottery’s Big Spin.

Bankson had purchased the winning ticket for his mother on Thanksgiving Day 1996.

Hodge had dedicated her win to the memory of her late husband, an avid lottery player. At the time, she said she would use some of the money for a Hawaiian vacation and some of the remainder for a new home.

She fulfilled her wish just last month, purchasing a $291,000 four-bedroom home in an upscale Thousand Oaks neighborhood.

A family friend said Bankson had also benefited from his mother’s good luck.

The windfall represented a change of fortune for the budding guitarist, who played in a local band but had dropped out of Moorpark College after two semesters.

“He was a very nice guy and very honest,” said the family friend, who requested anonymity. “It’s more likely he was attacked than he was involved in some kind of altercation.”

Times researcher Steven Tice contributed to this story.