Murder defendant changes his testimony

As his lawyer tried to argue that his client was mentally disturbed and not fully responsible for his actions, a man accused of murdering his roommate with a kitchen knife took the stand this week to say he had never committed the stabbing in the first place.

Vladimir Benitez told lawyer David Wooden on Tuesday and Wednesday that he never stabbed Enrique Santiago Martinez, despite DNA evidence and his being confronted with interrogation transcripts that showed he told police he had done so.

Instead, Benitez said through a translator, it was Martinez who had the knife and Benitez took it and threw it away.

“No, no, he wanted to grab it but I didn’t let him,” Benitez said. “I took it from him, I threw it out and left.”

Witnesses continued to testify this week in the murder trial of Benitez, 28, who is accused of stabbing his roommate 15 times on Halloween of 2005 in the Huntington Beach apartment where they both rented living room space.

Martinez died soon after.

Benitez also denied having ever told cops that his landlady, Eugenia Torijano, had been putting thoughts in his head, even as Wooden tried to confront him with a transcript of the statements. Benitez said rereading those statements wouldn’t change his mind.

Benitez did say he believed she had used witchcraft against him.

Asked his reasons for believing the use of witchcraft, Benitez said through a translator: “She would take my things away and insult me. Many times she took money.”

Wooden and the prosecution have agreed the stabbing happened, but they disagreed on what was going on in Benitez’ mind. While prosecutor Sonia Balleste told the jury the facts add up to cold-blooded murder, defense attorney Wooden said there were doubts about Benitez’ sanity. While ascertaining Benitez’ mental status comes in a different phase of the trial, Wooden said his irrationality made it hard to know there was the intent required for a murder.

Benitez had been told by his landlord to leave the apartment by the end of the month, and he came in about midnight on the final day of October to kill his roommate in his sleep, Balleste said in opening arguments. A knife with Benitez’ DNA on the handle and Martinez’ blood on the blade was found behind the apartment, where residents saw a silhouette running off shortly after the stabbing, she said.

Benitez ultimately turned himself in, but in talking to cops he “changed his story” multiple times, Balleste said. At first he accused his landlady of witchcraft, then said Martinez had called him a homosexual slur and insulted his manhood, then said Martinez had pulled a knife on him, and finally told police he took the knife from the kitchen and stabbed Martinez, Balleste said.

“He told police, ‘His [expletive] life doesn’t matter to me,’” Balleste said.

But Wooden called his client’s actions — and his conflicting stories — those of a man beset by delusions. A psychologist has diagnosed him with schizophrenia and other possible disorders, he said. And a methamphetamine habit at the time may have pushed his mind into psychosis, he added.

“He sort of seems to drift in and out of rationality,” Wooden said in opening arguments. “You don’t know what to accept as real, what to accept as delusional, what to accept as potentially deceitful.”

Relatives had seen Benitez acting oddly long before the killing, pacing aimlessly or riding his bike in circles at night, Wooden said. And the first thing Benitez told police when they picked him up was that his landlady was a witch and had caused Martinez’ death by casting a spell, Wooden added.

“He goes into great detail about how she had put spells on him and engaged in witchcraft,” he said. “He says she’s taking pictures of him, that she has someone on the roof taking pictures of him. He says she’s stolen his undergarments and used them in a spell.”

But Balleste told jurors Benitez understood what he’d done, telling a family friend the next day that he was in trouble.

“The defendant told her he had a problem, and he told her he didn’t know where to go,” she said. “He asked how much a plane ticket to Mexico cost.”

The trial continues throughout this week.