Woman’s neatness helps make murder case

Kim Smith

Monday, Jan. 7, 2002 | 11:01 a.m.

Leticia Morfin could always count on her sister and best friend, Marysol "Mimi" Peres, to tease her relentlessly about her penchant for neatness.

Peres would often joke that she had an "excessive compulsive disorder," Letty Morfin said, but Metro Police are convinced Morfin's idiosyncrasy helped lead them to Peres' killer.

Kenneth Curtis is facing the death penalty in a trial that is slated to start today with the selection of a Clark County jury. Prosecutors say Curtis shot Peres in the head, wrapped her in a blue Martha Stewart bedsheet and put her body in a trash bin on Martin Luther King Boulevard on Dec. 19, 1997, to get back at Morfin for dumping him two days earlier.

Investigators say the break in the case came from Morfin, who was cleaning Curtis' apartment a few weeks later at his request while he was in a California jail on unrelated charges. Morfin found a Kmart receipt for a Martha Stewart sheet tucked into a shoebox -- a habit Morfin insisted upon when she lived with Curtis.

"If Leticia Morfin had not found the receipt to the Martha Stewart sheet, it's very unlikely we would have approved a case against the defendant," Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger said. "It's rare when you have a case where the evidence boils down to a receipt for an instrument of the crime."

Morfin testified that she knew something was strange, because Curtis had one set of brown queen-sized sheets. The receipt was dated the same day as the killing.

Morfin told a grand jury that Curtis began the habit of keeping his receipts in the box when they lived together.

"I told him to put all of his receipts in the box or I would throw them away if I found them on the counter," Morfin told a grand jury in the case.

While prosecutors don't have a murder weapon, they say they have a slew of circumstantial evidence.

Curtis is being represented by Deputy Public Defenders Jordan Savage and Kedric Bassett, who did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Prosecutors say Curtis tried to obtain a silencer the day before the killing, and they say a witness will testify that Curtis was told to use a pillow to muffle the sound.

Morfin said she was supposed to meet her sister the night of the slaying to celebrate Morfin's 24th birthday, but Peres never showed up. Investigators say Curtis' number was the last number that showed up on Peres' pager.

In grand jury testimony, Morfin also alleged that Curtis twice threatened to kill her if she left him.

In one instance, Curtis said he was going to take her into the desert and kill her "Mafia-style." The other incident took place in the bathroom of the apartment they shared.

"He ripped my T-shirt off. He ripped strips of it and he tied my legs together and my arms together," Morfin told grand jurors. "He tied a strip around my mouth so I wouldn't yell. (Then) he turned the water on in the tub and he said he was going to drown me."

Morfin said Curtis eventually calmed down and untied her.

Also expected to testify is an expert on knots who works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He is expected to testify that a knot found on the sheet is similar to a knot found on a plastic bag inside Curtis' apartment, Roger said.

According to court documents, the state is seeking the death penalty against Curtis because of his violent criminal history and Roger's belief he killed Peres after kidnapping her.

Curtis was convicted in San Diego County in 1998 of first-degree robbery and assault with a firearm. He was convicted again in October 1998 in connection with a 1996 armed robbery and hijacking in California. He is now serving a 25-year to life sentence in that case.