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Kirstin Lobato says she was out of town the night Duran Bailey was mutilated and murdered.
By Matt Pordum, Court TV, September 15, 2006
LAS VEGAS - Before police ever asked Kirstin Blaise Lobato a single question about the mutilation and murder of a homeless man, she bowed her head and cried, saying, "I didn't think anyone would miss anybody like that."
The man Lobato thought no one would miss was 43-year-old Duran Bailey, prosecutor Bill Kephart told jurors during his opening statement in Lobato's trial Thursday.
The prosecutor alleges Lobato, who was then 18, encountered Bailey while she was on a three-day methamphetamine binge on July 8, 2001, when she ran out of drugs and money and attempted to exchange sex for drugs from Bailey.
When Lobato, now 23, realized Bailey didn't have any drugs, she pulled out a butterfly knife, cut off his penis and killed him with a combination of stabbings and blows to the head with a baseball bat, according to Kephart.
Bailey's injuries also included what the coroner determined was a postmortem stabbing to his anus.
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After a thorough investigation of the crime scene, however, police had no suspects, Kephart said.
They had no leads until July 20, when officers received a phone call from a woman in Northern Nevada asking if the police have any ongoing cases with a severed penis involved.
The call came from Lobato's confidante and former teacher, who said Lobato came to her house "extremely upset about something she had done in Las Vegas."
Kephart said police officers drove to Lobato's parents' home in Panaca, Nev., about 160 miles north of Las Vegas, and questioned the teen about the incident.
Lobato told them Bailey was "an older smelly black man, a person who smelled like alcohol and dirty diapers" whom she was trying to keep out of her mind.
The prosecutor said Lobato was in her hometown for the Fourth of July celebration. But neighbors are expected to testify that, on July 5 and 6, Lobato fought with her mother about returning to Las Vegas.
Kephart contends Lobato drove to Las Vegas angry and looking for more methamphetamine when she came into contact with Bailey.
The prosecutor said several of Lobato's friends will testify that she would "do anything she could do to get her hands on meth."
Other witnesses will testify that Bailey was known as someone who traded sex for drugs.
But Lobato's attorney, Shari Greenberger, told jurors that Lobato never met the victim and was "160 miles away in Panaca" when the killing occurred. The defense attorney said witnesses and phone records will support her alibi.
When Lobato was confiding in her former teacher and later talking to police, Greenberger said, she believed she was discussing a different incident weeks earlier in which she was sexually assaulted by another man.
The defense attorney contends the police took Lobato's story of being attacked and acting in self-defense and "twisted it into a confession" to the murder and mutilation of Bailey.
She also pointed to a lack of physical evidence, saying DNA on gum at the scene, a foreign pubic hair found on Bailey, bloody shoeprints and tire tracks have all been shown to have no connection to Lobato.
Greenberger also offered another possible suspect - a woman named Diane Parker.
Greenberger claims Parker was raped by Bailey one week before he was found dead, giving her or someone she knows a motive to kill him. Parker was at the crime scene and identified Bailey's body for police, Greenberger noted.
Lobato was convicted of first-degree murder and sexual penetration of a corpse on May 18, 2002, and later sentenced to 40 to 100 years in prison.
In September 2004, however, the Nevada Supreme Court granted her a new trial, citing the trial judge's failure to admit evidence that could have weakened the credibility of a jailhouse informant.
Lobato's retrial is being covered live by Court TV
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