This is ONE example, of many, of our new death classification category, death by "sexual circumstances."9-17-2009 California:
SAN DIEGO — Nearly two years after an Orange County man died under suspicious circumstances, police have made an arrest in the case.
Philong Huynh, 39, of San Diego, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a murder charge and a special-circumstance allegation of sodomy in the death of Dane Williams.
Huynh also pleaded not guilty to a separate sodomy charge in connection with the sexual assault of a second man.
Police said Huynh lives within 800 feet of where the body of Williams, 23, was found after he vanished.
Williams, of Huntington Beach and an employee of Hurley International, was visiting San Diego for the Action Sports Retailers Convention. In the early-morning hours of Jan. 26, 2008, he left a bar in the Gaslamp Quarter and seemingly disappeared.
Prosecutors said he was visibly intoxicated when he left the bar.
Williams' body was found Jan. 29 in an alley on Landis Street south of University Avenue near Colina del Sol Park in City Heights. The body was wrapped in a blanket and wearing a cap, neither of which belonged to him. His underwear was missing.
A manner of death was never determined, the Medical Examiner's Office said.
Investigators did not identify a suspect until this summer, when a man reported being the victim of a sex crime.
Deputy District Attorney Gretchen Means told a judge Tuesday that the victim met Huynh in the Gaslamp Quarter on June 6 and they ended up drinking and going to the beach. The next day, the male victim woke up in Huynh's bed.
“Previously he had said he had a headache and the defendant gave him two tablets,” Means said. “When he woke up he felt extremely sick and disoriented.”
The man went to a doctor that day and was diagnosed with “benzodiazepine intoxication” and showed signs of sexual assault, said the prosecutor, who described benzodiazepine as a central nervous system depressant. He, like Williams, is heterosexual, Means said.
On Aug. 19, DNA evidence from that alleged crime was matched through an FBI database to DNA found on Williams' body, said police Lt. Kevin Rooney. That led homicide investigators to Huynh, Rooney said.
Officers spotted Huynh driving Thursday on 43rd Street and Orange Avenue just after 5 p.m. and took him into custody.
Huynh, who works for a medical-equipment supply company, lives with his mother on Wightman Street near Shiloh Road, about a block from where Williams'body was found. Police served search warrants at the home and a former address.
Means told a judge Tuesday that several pharmaceuticals were found at Huynh's residence, including a benzodiazepine prescription in his name. The prescription was filled in January 2008, the same month that Williams' body was found.
Some commonly prescribed medications classified as benzodiazepines include, Xanax, Valium, Ativan and Rohypnol, the last of which is commonly referred to as the “date-rape drug” because of its involvement in many sexual assault cases, according to the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland at College Park. A victim is given the drug, which causes the person to black out and have trouble remembering any assaults, experts have previously said.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Polly Shamoon ordered Huynh to be held in county jail without bail and appointed the Public Defender's Office to represent him.
A photo of Huynh was released by police, who asked other potential victims to contact them. He is not registered as a sex offender, Rooney said.
At the time of his disappearance and for months afterward, family, friends and co-workers handed out fliers throughout the city in the hopes of solving the mystery. A $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest was also offered.
The special allegation in Williams' death makes Huynh eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors typically decide whether to seek the death penalty or life in prison without parole after a preliminary hearing in which a judge decides if there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial. ..Source.. by Angelica Martinez and Dana Littlefield
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