Lobato convicted in killing, mutilation

Kim Smith

Monday, May 20, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

A Panaca woman will receive a 40- to 100-year term after being found guilty early Saturday morning in the mutilation death of a Las Vegas homeless man.

Shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday Kirstin Blaise Lobato, 19, learned that a Clark County jury didn't believe that she was 165 miles away when Duran Bailey, 44, was beaten and stabbed to death on July 8.

After deliberating five hours jurors convicted Lobato of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon and sexual penetration of a dead human body. Rather than risk a no-parole life sentence, Lobato agreed to accept the 40- to 100-year term.

District Judge Valorie Vega will formally sentence Lobato on July 2. Lobato will learn then if she will get five to 15 years for the penetration charge or five to life.

"In this case, there was a tremendous amount of evidence in bits and pieces," Deputy District Attorney William Kephart said after the verdict was read. "The jury seemed to be able to put them all together."

Lobato cried quietly when the verdict was read, but as Vega thanked the jury for their service, Lobato began to shake uncontrollably. Although she has been on house arrest for the past several months, she was taken into custody to await sentencing in July.

Lobato's attorneys and father declined to comment.

Jurors began deliberating after three hours of closing arguments that lasted into Friday evening. They had been given the choice of coming back today to discuss Lobato's case, but decided to stay.

Kephart and fellow prosecutor Sandra DiGiacomo told jurors they believe Lobato killed Bailey when he demanded sex in exchange for drugs.

The prosecutors said physical evidence and Lobato's statements to police and friends indicate she stabbed Bailey in the genitals and neck, then beat him to death with a baseball bat. She then sexually mutilated him after he died, they said.

The mere fact there were two instruments of death pointed to first-degree murder, the attorneys said in closing arguments.

"She got the drugs and she wasn't about to give up sex to a smelly, dirty old man," DiGiacomo told jurors.

Lobato was arrested 12 days after Bailey's body was found when she told a former teacher she had cut off a dirty smelly old man's genitals when he tried to sexually assault her.

The teenager gave a similar story to police upon her arrest.

Lobato's defense attorneys, Phil Kohn and Gloria Navarro, told jurors that police never discussed the date of Bailey's death with Lobato. She thought they were questioning her about a Memorial Day weekend attack.

The defense attorneys put several witnesses on the stand to testify Lobato was in Panaca from July 2 until July 9. Prosecutors, in their closing arguments, said cell phone bills indicate she left Panaca July 6 after arguing with her parents and returned after the murder in the early hours of July 8.

Kohn reminded the jurors that forensic experts found no physical evidence to indicate Lobato was at the crime scene. In fact footprints at the scene are almost three times her size.

"That's reasonable doubt right there," Kohn said of the footprints. "Whose shoes are they?"