A Look Back:

A jury found Willia Hunt innocent in the December 1969 stabbing death of husband Willis Hunt, even after the woman’s daughter testified that her mother had been in a murderous rage before grabbing a butcher knife in the couple’s Corona del Mar kitchen that night.

“Stop. I don’t want to fight you,” Willia Hunt’s 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage testified her stepfather Willis Hunt had pleaded that night, before her mother stabbed him twice in the chest with a butcher knife.

Historical newspaper accounts of the trial identify the teenager only as “Dru.”

Dru told the jury she saw her step-father “crinkle up and fall” after her mother stabbed him and quoted him as saying “Oh my God...Dru,” the L.A. Times reported in November 1970.

The Hunts lived at 2516 Harbor View Drive at the time of the stabbing, according to historical news accounts.

Willia Hunt, who was 43 when she went on trial for murder, was wife No. 5 for Willis Hunt.

The adopted son of a wealthy family and former Newport Beach yacht broker, Willis Hunt was once married to late Hollywood film star Carole Landis. Landis filed for divorce two months after the couple’s quickie Las Vegas nuptials on July 4, 1940.

The actress left Willis after he tried to force her to put her film career on hold, Landis told a judge handling the divorce proceedings in November 1940.

“He became ugly and surly and would tell me that he would not stand for my continuing with my work,” Landis said, the Los Angeles Times reported Nov. 13, 1940.

Landis committed suicide eight years later.

Willis Hunt eventually left the yacht brokerage business and began operating a marine service business in Costa Mesa, according to newspaper clippings.

He had been married three times before tying the knot with Landis. He married and divorced once more before wedding Willia Hunt.

Willis and Willia Hunt had been arguing over disciplining Dru on the night of his death, according to historical accounts.

Before the stabbing, Willia Hunt slapped her daughter, tore the telephone out of the wall and shouted at Willis Hunt, “I want to kill you. I don’t care if you have to spend the rest of my life in the penitentiary,” Dru said.

Dru went on to testify that her mother had tried to retrieve a gun out of a camper parked outside the Hunts’ home. The camper was locked, so Willia Hunt grabbed a butcher knife, Dru told the jury.

“She thought about this crime, and she did this crime,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen said at the trial.

Willia Hunt stabbed her husband with “sufficient force to cut a rib in half,” the Los Angeles Times reported Nov. 10, 1970.

In contrast, the defense painted a picture of Willis Hunt as “drunk and unstable,” the Times reported.

Willia Hunt’s attorney, Sidney Irmas, told the jury that Willis Hunt picked up the knife and was killed as the couple struggled over the weapon.

The jury found Willia Hunt innocent in her husband’s death after deliberating for eight hours, the Los Angeles Times reported Nov. 11, 1970.

Willia Hunt hugged her friends and relatives after the verdict was read. She told the court that she had told the truth about her husband’s death.

“I just want to go home and rearrange my life,” she told reporters before leaving the courtroom.