New trial ordered in mutilation slaying

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004 | 8:36 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Kirstin B. Lobato, found guilty of the fatal stabbing and mutilation of a homeless man in Las Vegas, is going to get a new trial.

So is David W. Crawford, who was convicted of the 1997 fatal shooting of his girlfriend because he believed she was seeing other men.

The Nevada Supreme Court Friday overturned the first-degree murder convictions of both on grounds that errors were made at their trials in District Court.

Lobato, 21, was sentenced to 40 to 100 years in prison for the death of Duran Bailey, whose mutilated body was found behind a trash bin on West Flamingo Road on July 8, 2001.

Bailey died from a stab wound but had numerous other injuries that could have been inflicted with a baseball bat. Lobato testified that the man tried to sexually assault her and that she resisted, cut him with a knife and fled the area.

In the Lobato case, Korinda Martin, an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center, testified that Lobato told her she had picked up Bailey to buy methamphetamine and that she was high on drugs. Martin said Lobato told her the victim wanted to have sex but she refused and that she stabbed him at least eight times and mutilated him.

The Supreme Court, in reversing the conviction, said Martin was a key witness and that "extrinsic evidence" that cast doubt on her credibility should have been allowed by District Judge Valorie Vega.

Martin had been trying various ways to get out of jail. She wrote fraudulent letters that suggested she had a job on the outside if she were released.

The Supreme Court said those letters should have been admitted into evidence to show Martin's motive for testifying may have been an attempt to get favorable treatment leading to her release from jail.

The court said those phony letters "confirmed Martin's desperation to obtain an early release from incarceration and her willingness to adopt a fraudulent course of action to achieve that goal."

Crawford was sentenced in 2002 to two consecutive life terms with the possibility of parole after 20 years for the fatal shooting of Gloria Dugan in her apartment on Orange Grove Lane in Las Vegas.

Crawford and Dugan were romantically involved while she was engaged to an Air Force member who was serving in Korea. Dugan went to visit another man and, when she arrived home, Crawford was waiting for her.

Crawford claimed he shot Dugan during the "heat of the moment" because she was lying to him.

The court said District Judge Donald Mosley committed reversible error when he refused to instruct the jury on Crawford's heat-of-passion theory of defense. Crawford's defense was that he killed Dugan in the heat of passion and should be convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter and not first-degree murder.

Manslaughter carries a penalty of one to 10 years. Crawford was sentenced in October 2002.