Boy, 9, describes parents’ slaying

The 9-year-old son of a Ventura County couple who were stabbed to death by an intruder last year attempted to get the man to leave by offering him his mother’s and father’s wallets.

FOR THE RECORD:
Ventura County slayings: An article in Saturday’s LATExtra section about the killings of Ventura County couple Brock and Davina Husted gave the wrong first name for the man charged with murdering them. He is Joshua Packer, not Jonathan. —

The son later told detectives he saw the man take his parents into a back bedroom, promising “not to hurt the children,” then he heard his mother scream. The intruder fled.

Details of the night of May 20, 2009, when Brock and Davina Husted, who was pregnant, were stabbed to death in their beachfront home in the Faria Beach Colony, were included in affidavits used to support Ventura County sheriff’s detectives’ search warrants that were recently unsealed.

The Husteds’ son and daughter, ages 9 and 11, were not physically harmed in the attack.

Jonathan Packer, 20, was charged in April with three counts of murder, as well as robbery and burglary. His trial is scheduled for March.

In interviews with detectives, the Husteds’ 9-year-old son said he and his parents had just finished watching “American Idol” when a gunman entered their house wearing black clothes and a motorcycle helmet concealing his entire face except for his eyes, which were covered by a clear visor.

The intruder ordered them to the floor and demanded money and jewelry.

His mother told the boy to give the intruder her wallet from her purse and take cash out of her and his father’s wallets.

The boy told detectives he placed cash and a wallet on the floor at the intruder’s feet. He heard both parents ask the man “to promise not to hurt the children,” according to the affidavit. He heard the intruder promise he would not.

The boy told detectives he saw his parents run down the hallway toward their bedroom, followed by the intruder.

The boy hid behind a living room couch. Minutes later, he heard his mother scream, then saw the intruder run out.

He ran to his parents’ bedroom and found them in a pool of blood, and a kitchen butcher knife lying in the blood.

He ran to wake his 11-year-old sister. Terrified, they ran to check on their parents. Then they locked themselves in their parents’ bathroom. After a few minutes, they climbed out through a bathroom window and ran to a neighbor’s house for help.

Brock Husted, 42, owned a wrought-iron business in Santa Barbara. Davina Husted, also 42, was active in the National Charity League, a women’s philanthropic organization.

The killings shocked the county’s tranquil beach communities. Sheriff Bob Brooks called the incident “one of the most tragic multiple homicides in the history of Ventura County.”

The case went unsolved for almost a year until detectives said they linked Packer to the crime through DNA evidence found on a motorcycle helmet visor that was left behind.

Packer had been arrested earlier this year and charged with the armed robbery of a gas station.

sam.quinones@latimes.com