Father defends son’s character on stand

The courtroom has gone quiet this week in the trial of Ian Allen. With testimony finished this week, the prosecution and defense are now waiting out a recess till Monday, when each side will give closing arguments in the case of a Huntington Beach man accused of killing his former girlfriend’s mother.

Allen, 23, is accused of fatally stabbing Barbara Mullenix, the mother of his then-girlfriend Rachael Mullenix, in her Huntington Beach condo in September 2006.

Rachael Mullenix was found guilty of first-degree murder in July, and waits in jail for her sentencing Oct. 10. She faces 25 years to life in prison.

Allen was slow to anger and never violent, his parents told jurors last week.

“He is the least aggressive out of my three boys,” father Clyde Allen said on the witness stand. “Out of the three, he would be most easily characterized as gentle, yes. He sometimes reacts with temper, but it takes more to get him angry.”

Clyde Allen went on to say he had never seen his son react violently when angry.

The weekend before the killing, Clyde Allen said he spoke to his son and told him he didn’t think the relationship with Mullenix had gone on long enough to get very serious. But he said the answer he heard back satisfied him.

“Ian told me they were taking a break, and I was pretty happy about that,” Clyde Allen said.

His mother, Karen Allen, said her son did take his truck in to be serviced in the days before Mullenix’s murder. Allen had asked for those days off from work, a move prosecutors have argued was a cover for plans to kill Mullenix.

Later that day, jurors listened to the often-discussed tape of Allen and Mullenix talking in a police squad car together after they had been arrested. The two suspects, unaware they were being recorded, discuss their troubles with the law and the stories they have told police.

At one point in the tape, Mullenix asks Allen if he went along with a plan to keep the blame off of her.

“What did you tell them, did you tell them they kidnapped me?” Mullenix asks Allen on the tape.

“They didn’t buy that for a second,” he responds.

Soon after, Allen says on the tape that he thinks authorities are treating him as the guilty party.

“It’s all falling on me, at least 90% of it,” he says.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday morning, with the jury to go into deliberation soon after.