White Supremacist Convicted of Slaying Student
SANTA ANA — Marking what is believed to be Orange County’s first capital case involving a hate crime, a jury convicted a 24-year-old leader of a fledgling white supremacist gang Tuesday of fatally stabbing a Vietnamese American college student.
The Superior Court jury deliberated two days before convicting Gunner Lindberg of murder during a robbery and while committing a hate crime--charges that make him subject to the death penalty.
The jury rejected the defense’s assertion that the prosecution did not prove its case, and will return to court Thursday for a separate trial to decide whether the Tustin man should be executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The victim, 22-year-old Thien Minh Ly, a former president of the Vietnamese Students Assn. at UCLA, was practicing in-line skating on an unlighted tennis court near his parents’ Tustin home in January 1996 when Lindberg and a friend, Domenic M. Christopher, tried to rob him.
When they learned he had nothing of value, Lindberg stabbed the victim more than 50 times, and slashed his throat.
Christopher, 17 at the time of the murder, was tried and convicted as an adult and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for his participation in the killing.
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