Relative supports Lobato defense

Kim Smith

Wednesday, May 15, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

The stepmother of a 19-year-old Panaca woman accused of beating and stabbing a homeless Las Vegas man to death last July said the teenager was home in Panaca the night the man died.

Rebecca Lobato testified Tuesday that Kirstin Blaise Lobato arrived home from Las Vegas July 2 and didn't leave again until the morning of July 9.

The younger woman is accused of killing Duran Bailey, 44, sometime between 4:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. July 8. His body, which had been sexually mutilated after death, was found at 10:45 p.m. that day.

Rebecca Lobato was the first witness to be called by Lobato's defense attorneys. Kirstin Lobato was expected to take the stand this morning.

Prosecutors rested their case Monday after calling several witnesses to the stand who said Kirstin Lobato had told them she severed a man's penis when he tried to attack her in Las Vegas.

Jurors also heard Lobato's tape-recorded statement to the police last week. On that tape, Lobato said she was attacked by an old, smelly man after spending the night dancing nude for drug money.

After spending the next few days in Las Vegas, Lobato said she went home to Panaca July 13 to "get clean."

Lobato's defense attorneys told jurors during opening statements that the attack Lobato was referring to took place in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend.

Defense attorneys Gloria Navarro and Phil Kohn hope to raise enough reasonable doubt as to Lobato's whereabouts on July 8 to get her acquitted. Prosecutors William Kephart and Sandra DiGiacomo question the probability of two men being mutilated in the same way in such a short period.

The defense attorneys also told jurors that one week before Bailey was killed he raped a local woman -- thus raising the possibility someone else had a motive to kill Bailey.

That woman also took the stand Tuesday to describe the attack. She told prosecutors she had nothing to do with Bailey's death, nor did she ask anyone to kill him for her.

Rebecca Lobato said she was certain Lobato was home July 8 because she recalled a family friend and a pregnant niece stopping by to visit Lobato at the same time she made a long distance call to her sister in Colorado.

Phone records showing such a call were admitted into evidence, and the family friend, Chris Carrington, testified last week he did make such a visit. He said, however, he didn't remember the date until Rebecca Lobato reminded him.