Jury weighs self-defense in Lake Mead death

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A District Court jury is expected to decide today whether a deadly late night altercation at a desolate Lake Mead fishing hole was murder or self-defense.

The question for the jury in District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom is who to believe about the incident that left one man dead, another seriously injured and a third -- Aaron Trumbo -- facing a term of life in prison.

The 24-year-old defendant claimed he was just using his fishing knife to defend himself from an attack by four Henderson men who he said had pelted him and two teenage girls with rocks as they were fishing.

The three survivors didn't deny that some rocks were thrown but testified that many of them were hurled by Trumbo, who then charged them in the late night darkness and began stabbing repeatedly.

Deputy District Attorney Steve Hill told the jury during closing arguments Monday that the nine stab wounds to the dead man and four to another prove Trumbo's intent to kill.

Leonard Luna, 20, died from his injuries after being driven by friends to a hospital. Michael Marshall, also 20, had to be hospitalized for the injuries he suffered on July 6, 1995, at 33 Hole, three miles east of Lake Mead Bay Marina.

Trumbo testified last week that after the rocks began raining on him and the girls, he climbed to the top of a hill to confront the four men and persuade them to stop.

But he said he was attacked with feet and fists and escaped only by lashing out with his knife.

He said he feared for his safety and that of the girls with him.

"Where I come from, there's nobody that thinks you're not justified in defending yourself from an attack by a bunch of thugs," said defense attorney William Skupa. "This country was built on the right to defend yourself from thugs."

"Aaron is the victim here," Skupa told the jury. "He's still the victim waiting to see if you'll take his life away because he did what he had to do that night."

Skupa called the state's witnesses "liars" who were trying to convict Trumbo for the death during an incident they instigated.

He reminded the jury that a UNLV professor, utilizing student athletes, showed that it was impossible for Trumbo to have thrown rocks up the steep embankment as the witnesses described.

The closest a javlin thrower could reach was 30 feet short of where the rocks purportedly thrown by Trumbo were supposed to have landed.

Skupa criticized Metro Police investigators for accepting the men's stories without conducting similar tests.

Hill argued that Trumbo had no reason to take his knife with him if he was just going to confront the alleged rock throwers.