Murder trial begins for Lake Elsinore man with opening statements

A 40-year-old man killed an acquaintance because the victim stole from him, a prosecutor said today, but a defense lawyer said the slaying occurred after his client found the victim behaving lewdly outside the room of the defendant’s step-daughter.

Joseph Edward Butler is charged with murder for the death of 36-year-old Scott Allan Murphy, whose body was found off Bautista Canyon Road, northeast of Anza, on Nov. 26, 2004. He faces 25 years to life in prison.

The prosecution and the defense agree that Butler killed Murphy but differ over the motive for the killing.

Murphy died of blunt-force trauma, according to the county coroner’s office. Investigators believe the defendant killed Murphy at his home.

Prosecutor Sam Kaloustian told the seven-man, five-woman jury the evidence will Murphy was beaten with hands and with a tire iron and choked with a cable.

”A lot of people didn’t like Mr. Murphy,” Kaloustian told the jury in his opening remarks.

”He was a vagrant, a thief. But he was still a human being that was thrown out like a bunch of trash,” Kaloustian continued.

Both Butler and Murphy were intravenous methamphetamine users, Kaloustian said. Periodically, Butler allowed Murphy to shower at his place and get a meal, the prosecutor said.

But Murphy had stolen from Butler and Butler’s step-daughter, who was 15 at the time, and Butler wanted to get rid of him, Kaloustian said.

Defense attorney Wayne Rozenberg told the jury that his client admitted killing Murphy and was not trying to hide anything. Butler killed Murphy after he found the victim in an act of auto-eroticism outside the open bedroom door of Butler’s stepdaughter.

Butler was so enraged that he dragged the victim from the house and beat him, Rozenberg told the jury.

Murphy was found face-down, his jeans halfway down his body, a plastic- covered cable wrapped around his chest and his head severely injured.

Two young men on a mission with the Mormon church found the body when they noticed a blue tarp lying off the road. Murphy was found lying next to the tarp.

One of the young men, Shane Raven, said he went down the slope and touched Murphy’s arm to see if he could help. Raven said he had been trained as an emergency medical technician.

Murphy’s skin was cold and he had no pulse, Raven testified.

While awaiting trial on the murder count, Butler was charged with possession of drugs and paraphernalia while in jail in April 2008. Last March, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and destruction of jail property.

Butler was housed in the B Pod at the Southwest Justice Center and was cleaning the dayroom when he allegedly smashed the window of one of the cells with a push broom, trying to hit another inmate, who suffered cuts to his face from the broken glass, according to papers filed with the court.

Butler is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Tags: Joseph Edward Butler, Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, Sam Kaloustian, Scott Allan Murphy, Shane Raven, SWRNN

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Courts, Crime, Local News, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.