Huntington Beach man convicted of 2019 Newport Beach double homicide

A 47-year-old Huntington Beach man was convicted Tuesday for the 2019 murder of Darren Partch and Wendi Miller in Partch’s Newport Beach home.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours before finding Jamon Rayon Buggs, 47, guilty of the special-circumstances murder. Sentencing is tentatively scheduled to occur on June 3, and Buggs faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Orange County district attorney’s office did not pursue the death penalty.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Porter said the jury was “fantastic” and attributed the verdict to the investigative efforts of the Newport Beach and Irvine police departments, the county sheriff’s office and the prosecutors preceding him on the case.

“They sat through a gruesome and gut-wrenching double-murder trial with 30 witnesses and 200 exhibits. They saw the truth and returned a just verdict holding Jamon Buggs accountable,” Porter said. “I can only hope that the conviction of Jamon Buggs can begin to assuage the pain and suffering of mothers, Brenda Partch and Mary Lu Miller and the rest of the families.

“They deserve it most of all.”

Defense attorneys for Buggs did not dispute that he committed the crime but appealed to jurors to downgrade the charges of first-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter — the difference coming down to Buggs’ state of mind at the time that he killed Partch, 38, and Miller, 48, on April 20, 2019.

Partch was shot at four times, with two of the bullets striking him. Miller was shot once at close range, according to investigators.

Defense attorney Michael Hill, in his closing remarks Monday, argued the crime was not premeditated and was a crime of passion as Buggs was fueled by what was described as a “toxic” relationship between Buggs and his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Brewers.

The two had an on-and-off relationship that began in Riverside in 2017. Prosecutors said their relationship ended by early 2019, but Buggs continued to pursue Brewers and the men she dated after she and Buggs had broken it off.

Brewers met Partch at a gym and exchanged contact information in 2019. Buggs contacted Partch in March of that year, after finding his number through online databases, according to testimony, and told him to stay away from Brewers. Partch agreed to end contact with Brewers, according to his then-roommate, Dean Matheson, who testified he had overheard the call.

Still, Buggs continued to keep an eye on Partch.

Defense attorneys said Buggs mistook Miller, who Partch had met that night at the Sandpiper Lounge in Laguna Beach, for Brewers. It was when he heard the two being intimate in Partch’s Newport Beach condominium, his attorneys said, that Buggs killed the two. Prosecutors argued there was no evidence indicating that the murders were a case of mistaken identity.

In the hours following, Buggs was arrested in Irvine, after a woman called law enforcement to report there was a strange man on the balcony of her home. Buggs fired a shot as he began to flee the area. A ballistics report tied that bullet, retrieved from the eaves of the Irvine complex, to those found at the crime scene in Newport Beach.

Investigators believed Buggs was looking for another man he believed was dating Brewers.

Neither of Buggs’ attorneys could be immediately reached for comment on the verdict Tuesday afternoon.

Buggs was also convicted for possession of a firearm by a felon and for attempted first-degree burglary. He also faces an additional sentencing enhancement for using a gun in the murders.

“Darren Partch and Wendi Miller were executed at the hands of a jealous ex-boyfriend who was hunting for the woman he was obsessed with. This was not a heat of passion crime; this was a systematic and methodical plot to exact revenge and eliminate his rivals — real or perceived,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer in a statement released Tuesday.

“Tragically, Darren and Wendi were two innocent people who were not involved with Mr. Buggs and had no responsibility for the relationship issues he had with his ex-girlfriend; yet they paid the ultimate price with their lives,” Spitzer said. “Even after he realized the woman he killed was not his ex-girlfriend, he continued working his way down his hit list to eliminate his rivals. And he would have kept hunting and killing if he hadn’t been arrested.”

The case has been tied to recent controversy involving Spitzer.

In an October meeting last year to decide on whether or not to pursue the death penalty in Buggs’ case, Spitzer made comments about the dating habits of Black men in the company of fellow prosecutors, saying that he knew “many Black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating white women,” according to a memo by former prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh.

Buggs’ ex-girlfriend is white.

Spitzer disputed the wording of his remarks but did publicly apologize for them. Still, in a statement issued Tuesday, he said allegations of racial animus or bias against Buggs were unfounded.

“Any pretrial discussions about race of the defendant or the race of the defendant’s former girlfriend were in fact the entire basis of the defense’s arguments to the jury that the defendant misidentified the female victim as his former girlfriend based on race,” Spitzer said in the statement.

”... the defendant’s own defense attorneys argued that this was a case of mistaken identity because the female victim and the defendant’s former girlfriend shared similar physical characteristics — Caucasian and blond wavy hair. Issues arising from cross-racial identification are argued in courtrooms across America every single day. There is not one iota of truth that my office is engaged in any racial bias in this case or any other case.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett, who presided over the trial, is still reviewing internal communications from the district attorney’s office relating to the case.

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