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Murder and dismemberment case’s delays frustrate slain man’s family

"You never forget your child. But I would like as much as possible to go on with my life," says Raquel Herr, the mother of slaying victim Sam Herr, with her husband, Steve.
(Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times)
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In a notebook, Steve Herr keeps a list of every court hearing for the man accused of murdering his son.

As of Aug. 29 — four years, three months and eight days after Sam Herr’s death — there have been 40 in the case against Daniel Patrick Wozniak.

“Every time we go in there, it’s a slap in the face,” Steve Herr said before entering Orange County Superior Court last week. “I’m starting to hate the justice system more than I hate Wozniak.”

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Wozniak, 30, is accused of killing and then dismembering Sam Herr.

The Herr family is tired of waiting for a trial that has been repeatedly delayed by complications in another homicide case, unexpected deaths and squabbles among lawyers.

Wozniak’s defense most recently asked to postpone the trial until next year while it crafts a motion alleging misconduct by prosecutors.

An end may be in sight. Superior Court Judge James Stotler has promised he’ll consider that request Friday and decide on a date for the trial — one more entry in Steve Herr’s notebook.

“Every delay hurts more,” Herr said. “The anger builds.”

***

In 2010, Wozniak was a neighbor of 26-year-old Sam Herr in a Costa Mesa apartment complex. That May, prosecutors allege, Wozniak asked Herr for help moving furniture before shooting him twice in the head.

Police said Wozniak killed for money, planning to use a stolen ATM card to access about $50,000 that Herr had saved from his Army service in Afghanistan.

The next day, authorities allege, Wozniak returned to the scene of the shooting and began dismembering the body to hide it.

A day later, Steve Herr found the body of Juri “Julie” Kibuishi in Sam Herr’s apartment, according to a transcript of grand jury testimony. The 23-year-old was Sam Herr’s friend and tutor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Prosecutors allege Wozniak used Sam Herr’s phone to lure Kibuishi to the apartment and shot her as well, staging the scene to look like Sam Herr had sexually assaulted her.

Wozniak was arrested days after the killings and has pleaded not guilty to two murder charges and related sentencing enhancements.

Sam Herr’s mother, father, aunt and uncle attend each court date for Wozniak. They have considered bringing poster-size pictures of the crime scene to help prod the process.

“We’re forgetting what happened here, the gruesomeness of the murder,” said the aunt, Miriam Nortman.

“We’re the only ones speaking for Sam,” added the uncle, Mike Nortman.

***

Four years is an atypical wait for a murder trial, said UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“It’s longer than you see in most cases,” he said. “But again, things happen.”

In Wozniak’s case, a string of happenings started as early as 2012, when Wozniak’s public defender asked for more time to review video evidence before a hearing that would have determined whether there was enough evidence for a trial.

Eventually, prosecutors sidestepped that hearing and, in an effort to speed up the process, took the evidence to a grand jury, which indicted Wozniak.

In 2013, one of the prosecution’s witnesses, Costa Mesa police Det. Mike Delgadillo, was killed in a car crash. Delgadillo had testified before the grand jury that Wozniak confessed to the slayings.

This summer, court dates were pushed back after Judge Stotler’s wife died.

Lately, hearings have mostly consisted of prosecutor Matt Murphy and public defender Scott Sanders throwing barbs at each other. Murphy accuses Sanders of dragging his feet, and Sanders accuses Murphy of trying to shame and embarrass him.

On Aug. 29, Stotler shouted them down after Murphy accused Sanders of smirking about the delays, setting off a round of sniping.

“You want me to take a recess so you guys can cool off?” Stotler asked.

***

The Herr family feels they’ve taken a back seat to another homicide case.

Sanders also is defending Scott Dekraai, Orange County’s worst mass killer, who pleaded guilty in May to eight counts of murder and one count of attempted murder stemming from a 2011 shooting at a Seal Beach salon.

Sanders asked repeatedly for more time on the Wozniak case as he waded through months of hearings related to Dekraai and a 505-page motion he submitted alleging misconduct by prosecutors in the Dekraai case.

Sanders even submitted material from that case to prove how hard he had been working.

While Stotler agreed, telling Sanders his work was “the absolute antithesis of laziness,” it was cold comfort for Sam Herr’s family.

“They literally pit victims against victims,” Steve Herr said.

Sanders has told Stotler he needs until December to craft a massive motion alleging that law enforcement illegally used jailhouse informants to coax information from Wozniak.

Prosecutors call that a smoke screen, arguing they’re not going to use anything from informants at trial and that Sanders has an impossible task to prove any harm was done to Wozniak.

But that kind of allegation is hard for a judge to ignore when it comes to protecting a defendant’s right to a fair trial, Chemerinsky said.

“It may take time for the argument to happen, but it has to happen,” he said.

After months of hearings on similar issues in the Dekraai case, a judge ruled that the Orange County district attorney’s office had failed to turn over evidence in some homicide cases, but he declined to throw out the possibility of the death penalty for Dekraai.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Wozniak as well, an option the Herr family wants to stay on the table.

“He doesn’t deserve to live,” Mike Nortman said. “That’s the most frustrating thing, that he’s still living and breathing and watching TV.”

***

Last week, when Stotler said he needed to finish reading the documents Sanders and Murphy submitted before he sets a trial date, Sam Herr’s parents began waving their hands from the audience. They wanted to speak.

Facing Stotler, Steve Herr clenched his jaw and described having to find someone to sew his son’s head back onto his body so he could be buried in a military cemetery.

With that pain in mind, Herr said he almost lost control when the defense asked for a February court date.

“How much longer do we have to sit here and listen to this crap?” he said.

Before Stotler picked up his binders of reading for the case and ordered everyone back one week later, the Herrs pleaded with the judge.

“I ask you to please give us closure,” said the victim’s mother, Raquel Herr.

For more than four years, the case has consumed their lives, the couple said outside court.

“You never forget your child,” Raquel Herr said. “But I would like as much as possible to go on with my life.”

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