Killing of Friend in Desert Brings No-Contest Plea

A man who claimed his best friend begged him to put him out of his misery after they got lost in the desert without water pleaded no contest Monday to second-degree murder.

Raffi Kodikian, 26, of Boston, admitted stabbing his friend, David Coughlin, in August during a camping trip in the back country of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

“You start understanding people in dehydrated states do some crazy things,” said defense attorney Gary Mitchell.

Kodikian could get up to 20 years in prison at the end of a sentencing hearing that is expected to end Wednesday.

Under the plea bargain, Kodikian preserves the right to appeal a judge’s ruling barring him from mounting a defense of temporary insanity based on dehydration-induced dementia.

Kodikian said Coughlin, 26, of Millis, Mass., pleaded with him to end his pain after the two got lost and ran out of water. Kodikian said he and his friend believed Coughlin would die.

“David pleads with Raffi to end his life, and Raffi, in what most people call a mercy killing, does as his best friend wishes,” Mitchell said.

Park workers rescued Kodikian about six hours after his friend died. The friends’ campsite was only 240 feet from the trail head, which is marked with rock cairns, and a mile from their car. Had they hiked to a higher point, they could have seen the trail or the visitors center.

State investigators said that Coughlin had moderate to severe dehydration but that his body fluids were not at a lethal level when he was killed.