Jury hears opening statement in death penalty trial over stabbings at circus circus | Dishes

Lawyers began opening statements Monday morning in a death penalty trial against a man accused of fatally stabbing two Vietnamese tour guides in a Circus Circus hotel room more than six years ago.

Julius Trotter, 37, is on trial for two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, burglary with a deadly weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, accusing Trotter of fatally stabbing Sang Nghia and Khuong Nguyen in the early morning hours of June 1, 2018, after getting into their hotel room due to a broken lock.

Prosecutors argued the killing was part of a robbery, but defense attorney Ozzie Fumo said in opening arguments that Nghia and Nguyen were killed in a “targeted attack” while they were at Circus Circus.

He said that after his death, Nguyen was stabbed again in the heart, lungs and genitals. Nghia also suffered stab wounds to her chest and buttocks, Fumo argued on Monday.

“This person who killed these people knew exactly where to aim and what to hit,” he said.

Nguyen worked for the travel company that Nghia ran with her husband. The two had arrived in the United States days earlier as part of a tour group from Ho Chi Minh City to Los Angeles with a detour to Las Vegas. The small group also had a lead tour guide, Tuan Trinh, who testified through a Vietnamese interpreter Monday afternoon.

Arguing that Nguyen and Nghia were “very close,” Fumo played surveillance footage of Nghia leaning against Nguyen in an elevator. But Trinh testified Monday that Nguyen was gay and that Nghia’s husband was okay with her sharing a room with him.

Assistant District Attorney Michelle Fleck alleged that Trotter killed the two in a “door dash,” in which someone tries to track down hotel rooms accidentally left open to steal tourists’ belongings.

“He sneaked into her room, killed her and took her belongings,” Fleck said.

“I can never forget it”

Trinh said that Nguyen and Nghia did not leave their room the morning after checking into the hotel to attend a tour of the Hoover Dam. He took the group with him on the trip, but asked a security guard to check on his colleagues when they still didn’t respond that afternoon.

He stood up and demonstrated how he almost fainted when he saw the bloody scene in the hotel room.

“I can never forget that,” Trinh said through an interpreter.

Trotter’s former girlfriend and mother of his child, Itaska Dean, testified Monday that she and Trotter were staying in the Circus Circus Manor rooms the night of the murder.

Surveillance footage showed Trotter leaving Circus Circus Manor around 4 a.m. and taking an elevator to the Circus Circus Tower, where Nguyen and Nghia lived. About 45 minutes later, he went back to his room with his shirt turned inside out and he and Dean quickly checked out, Fleck reasoned.

Dean testified that Trotter came into the room early that morning to leave the hotel and that the two took a taxi to an ATM before checking into the Palms. Prosecutors said Trotter began gambling as soon as he arrived at the Palms that morning.

Contradictory statement

She said she wanted to return to her home in Chino, California, so Trotter could see her son. Days later, Dean and Trotter led police on a chase in Southern California that ended with Trotter’s arrest.

She previously testified before a grand jury that Trotter told her, “I might go to prison for murder.” Testifying on Monday, Dean said Trotter never actually told her he might get in trouble for being suspected of murder .

Although Dean had previously testified that Trotter had discarded items in the Palms’ bathrooms after the murder, she testified Monday that she only assumed Trotter was doing just that. Dean said her statements to investigators were contradictory because she was “scared.”

“I don’t want to go to prison for murder. I know I didn’t murder anyone,” she said.

When police arrested Trotter, they found Nghia’s purse and Nguyen’s backpack in the car Dean was driving during the chase. According to the prosecution, Nghia’s watch was also found in the house where the couple lived.

Fumo argued Monday that while Trotter was found with the victims’ items, the state did not have enough evidence to prove he killed them. He said the victims’ property could have been left in the stairwell right next to their room where there were no surveillance cameras.

“Correlation does not equal causation, as the evidence in this case will show,” Fumo said.

Fleck told the jury that “all the common sense in the world” proved that Trotter was guilty of the murders.

“Tragically, ladies and gentlemen, Sang and Khuong’s trip to Las Vegas did not end with photos, memories or trinkets from a gift shop on Las Vegas Boulevard,” Fleck told the jury. “Instead, it ends here, in this trial, with all of you.”

Contact Katelyn Newberg at [email protected] or 702-383-0240.