Defense attorneys call teen’s killing of man unintentional

Erica D. Johnson

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

Lawyers defending a 16-year-old boy charged with killing a middle-aged man in a home-invasion robbery said Monday that the stabbing was unintentional.

Mark Ford faces murder charges in the Feb. 24, 2003, death of 56-year-old Vincent Gomes.

Authorities say the teen broke into the home in a gated community near Grand Canyon Drive and Sahara Avenue intending to rob it, and killed Gomes when he discovered him home. Ford was 15 at the time.

But on the first day of Ford's trial before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, defense attorneys said Ford stabbed Gomes in the heat of passion after Gomes tried to place the teen under a citizen's arrest.

During his opening argument, Deputy Public Defender Craig Davis said Gomes, a former security guard at Bally's, grabbed Ford and pulled him into the house through an open window when he caught Ford prowling in his back yard.

"(Gomes) is threatening him, yelling at him," Davis said.

Gomes had the teen in a chokehold and had dialed 911 when Ford, "in total panic, fear and immaturity," grabbed a knife out of the kitchen sink and stabbed Gomes in the neck, Davis said.

"Mark Ford did not stab with any premeditation or intention of ending the life of Vincent Gomes," he told jurors.

But prosecutors quickly began laying a foundation to prove Gomes was physically incapable of struggling with the teen in the way defense attorneys described.

Roberta Gomes, Gomes' ex-wife, said her husband was too weak to perform even the simplest tasks around the house following bypass surgery a few years ago.

"His arms and hands were numb," she said. "He couldn't grab anything or hold onto anything."

The couple had divorced after 25 years of marriage in 1998, but Vincent Gomes moved back into her home following the surgery, she said.

Vincent Gomes also suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He was off work on disability when he was killed, she said.

"He couldn't make it on his own," she said. "He needed someone to take care of him."

Prosecutors say the teen, a former resident of the Wellington Park gated community, traveled to the Gomes home on a mo-ped and entered through a bathroom window. They say the teen was armed with a weeding tool.

Authorities say the teen also committed several other burglaries in the area in the months leading up to the killing. No one was hurt in those burglaries.

"Mark did those," Davis told jurors regarding the prior burglaries. "We're not painting Mark as a saint."

Davis also acknowledged that Ford, who was born in Lithuania and came to the United States when he was in elementary school, has history of other bad behavior.