Closing Arguments Presented in Von Haden Murder Trial

An appliance repairman suffocated his two children to exact revenge on his wife and should be convicted of first-degree murder, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

But defense attorneys for David Von Haden, who could face the death penalty, argued that the 37-year-old Yorba Linda man deserved the more lenient verdict of voluntary manslaughter.

In closing arguments, Deputy Public Defender Jean Wilkinson did not deny that Von Haden killed his children on Feb. 22, 1996, before he shot himself in a suicide attempt. But she said the killings did not arise out of malice. Rather, she said, they were a desperate attempt by a depressed man to escape his pain.

Just weeks before a court hearing to settle the couple’s divorce and child-custody arrangements, Von Haden picked up his children, Cody, 4, and Courtney, 2, from day care, brought them home and gave them huge doses of Dimetapp, a cold medicine, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood said. Von Haden proceeded to call his brother and said, “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” the prosecutor said.

Then using a pillow, Von Haden suffocated the children “with the force that left teeth marks on Cody’s lips,” Kirkwood said. When police arrived, they found the children’s bodies in the master bedroom near Von Haden, who was bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to the chest.

“The paramedics come and he’s not asking about the children,” Kirkwood told the Orange County Superior Court jury. “He said, ‘I couldn’t take it anymore.’ ”

In the weeks before the slayings, Kirkwood said, Von Haden had threatened his estranged wife and her boyfriend, who are now married and expecting their second child.

On the day of the slayings, Von Haden called his wife and told her, “It’s over.” Afterward, Von Haden emptied the bank account he shared with her and destroyed a utility vehicle that she was seeking in the divorce settlement.

“He’s doing anything he can, big or little, to hurt her,” Kirkwood said.

The defense contended that Von Haden wasn’t after revenge, but a kind of peace from a deep depression that clouded his mind.

“Something horrible must have happened,” Wilkinson said. “He must have snapped.”