Trial begins for Huntington Beach man accused of a 2019 double homicide in Newport Beach

The trial for the suspect in a 2019 double homicide began Tuesday at the Harbor Justice Center, nearly two years after Darren Partch and Wendi Miller were found dead in a Newport Beach condominium.

Jamon Rayon Buggs, 47, is charged with one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon, one felony count of attempted first-degree burglary and two felony counts of murder with additional special circumstances enhancements for using a firearm and committing multiple murders.

Buggs denied all charges and pleaded not guilty in February 2021.

He sat silently in the courtroom overseen by Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett Tuesday morning that was filled with media and members of Partch and Miller’s families.

Partch’s mother, Brenda, wept softly as prosecutors laid out the details of the case for the jurors.

Prosecutor David Porter described Buggs as consumed by jealousy.

In late February or early March 2019, Buggs’ ex-girlfriend, Samantha Brewers, and Partch, 38, met at the gym and exchanged usernames on Instagram after a conversation so that they could keep in touch. The two were not dating, but Porter said Buggs was mistakenly convinced they were a couple.

Prosecutors said Buggs later called Partch to tell him to stay away from Brewers. Partch agreed and asked the ex-girlfriend to end communications, but Buggs, Porter said, still went to Partch’s townhouse at some point after 1:45 a.m. on April 20, 2019 with a .38-caliber gun. While standing in the courtyard of the townhouse, Buggs is alleged to have heard Partch and Miller — who his attorneys say he mistook for Brewers — being intimate in the upstairs bedroom and entered the townhouse through an unlocked door with his gun drawn. Partch was shot twice and Miller once.

Both were shot in the head.

The two were later found by Partch’s roommate, Dean Matheson, who was called to testify on the events preceding the discovery.

Outside a Newport Beach condominium on East 15th Street where Darren Partch and Wendi Miller were found dead in 2019.

(Julia Sclafani)

Buggs was connected to the murders after he was arrested on suspicion for attempted burglaries in Irvine on April 22 that year. Investigators suspect Buggs was seeking out another man he believed also was involved with his ex-girlfriend, Brewers.

A resident reported to police that she had seen a man standing on her balcony looking through the glass door. When she screamed, the man fled, and she said she heard a gunshot. Police later retrieved a bullet lodged in an eave of the Irvine condo, which ballistics later matched to the bullets found at the scene of the murders.

Defense attorneys did not dispute the allegations that Buggs committed the murders, but attorney Sarah Hefling said the two murders were not premeditated. She spent her opening statements describing Buggs’ on-and-off relationship with Brewers, which began in Riverside in March 2017. The two met at a gym where Buggs was employed as a personal trainer at the time, eventually moving in together.

“They saw themselves as a power couple,” said Hefling.

Hefling said the couple eventually tried to break up, but Brewers continued to pursue Buggs and established what Hefling describes as a “playbook or the guidelines for what’s acceptable behavior or conduct in this relationship when one wants to break it off with the other. So by 2019 when [Brewers] is pushing him away, he’s following that playbook.”

Testimony focused on the events of the night before the murder took place, including statements from the first responding police officer, Matheson and Brenda Partch. Also offering testimony were two individuals who were the last to see Miller and Partch alive, as they left the Sandpiper Lounge in Laguna Beach together that night.

If found guilty, Buggs faces life in prison without the possibility for parole. Prosecutors elected to not seek the death penalty.

The case is mired in recent controversy involving Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, who made comments about the dating habits of men who are Black and 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 then-prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh. Baytieh was later fired in relation to an evidence-withholding case.

Buggs’ ex-girlfriend is white, along with Partch and Miller. Buggs is Black.

Spitzer has since apologized for his comments, but Prickett is currently reviewing boxes of documents relating to them, which raises the possibility Buggs’ sentence could be downgraded if convicted by the jury.

The trial is expected to continue Monday.

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