SAN DIEGO—A person who killed his 71-year-old father contained in the sufferer’s Rancho Santa Fe residence was sentenced Might 25 to life in jail with out the potential of parole.
Leighton Dorey IV, 45, was convicted by a San Diego jury final yr of first-degree homicide, plus a particular circumstance allegation of torture, for the Might 30, 2017, killing of Leighton Dorey III.
Prosecutors stated that after spending the prior 4 years residing in France, the youthful Dorey confirmed up at his father’s La Brisa residence, then killed him due to a perceived lack of economic help.
The elder Dorey was crushed and strangled, in accordance with the prosecution, which alleged his accidents included fractures to his backbone, neck, and ribs, in addition to a damaged nostril, damaged jaw, pores and skin torn from his palms and lots of of his tooth strewn about his physique from the power of the beating.
The conviction got here in Dorey’s second homicide trial.
His first trial held in Vista resulted in a hung jury that voted 11–1 in favor of convicting him. Dorey represented himself within the second trial on the downtown San Diego courthouse.
Dorey testified on his personal behalf and informed jurors he killed his father in self-defense after the sufferer tried to strangle him with a belt.
He testified that after bending right down to tie one among his shoelaces that had come undone, his father screamed, “Now you’re lifeless,” threw his belt round his son’s neck, and started choking him.
Throughout an ensuing wrestle, Dorey claimed he tried to subdue his father by placing him in a sleeper maintain and inadvertently took his life.
He then informed jurors that in a panic, he tried to stage the scene first as a suicide. When these efforts failed, he stated he tried to make it look as if his father had been killed by an unintended fall down a stairway on the residence.
Although he described his remedy of his father’s physique as “horrific” and “repulsive,” he stated, “I do suppose what I did was unsuitable. But it surely’s not homicide.”
On the stand, Dorey additionally extensively detailed his monetary troubles, his points discovering constant work whereas residing abroad, his father’s unsupportive angle towards his endeavors to develop “money-multiplier” software program, and his perception that his father tried to poison him in 2013.
After the killing, Dorey stated he drove to a police station in Murrieta and was ready to show himself in, however stated, “I couldn’t make myself do it” and left to have “another day of freedom.”
Regulation enforcement tracked him down within the Riverside County mountain neighborhood of Idyllwild sooner or later later and arrested him.
Originally posted 2023-05-25 19:33:27.