A person convicted of fatally stabbing a Navy sailor on the sufferer’s Level Loma residence greater than three many years in the past was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in state jail.
A San Diego jury discovered Brian Scott Koehl, 52, responsible of second-degree homicide within the killing of 31-year-old Larry Joe Breen.
Breen’s physique was found on Could 25, 1990 within the yard of his Locust Road residence coated in blood and with stab wounds to his neck.
The case went chilly however genetic family tree allowed investigators many years later to hyperlink Koehl to DNA discovered on the homicide scene. Koehl was arrested final 12 months in Tennessee.
At trial, his protection lawyer, Alicia Freeze, argued her consumer — then a “naive,” 19-year-old “small city boy from Ohio” — acted in self- protection after Breen sexually assaulted him.
At Koehl’s sentencing listening to, Deputy District Legal professional Lisa Fox alleged Koehl was contacted by legislation enforcement on a number of events through the years and gave consistently shifting accounts in an try and evade arrest.
The prosecutor mentioned Koehl denied any involvement to Naval Felony Investigative Service officers within the 90s and when he was arrested final 12 months, he advised investigators that he was at Breen’s residence, however left and returned the following day to search out Breen lifeless.
Concerning his account of the occasions at trial, Fox mentioned, “He turned Larry Breen right into a monster, which he was not.”
The prosecutor mentioned that in line with Breen’s household, the sufferer was “a mild man” and had a nonviolent demeanor, a lot in order that his resolution to enter the navy shocked his sister.
Breen was a petty officer and prepare dinner stationed aboard the USS Fox CG-33 who was slated to be then-President George Bush’s chef at Camp David.
“The defendant was fortunate. He had 33 years residing as a free man. The Breen household have waited 33 years for justice,” Fox mentioned.
Koehl’s protection lawyer requested a decide Friday to impose probation with a suspended jail sentence.
Freeze, who known as her consumer “a person of excessive integrity,” mentioned Koehl lived for greater than three many years crime-free. Koehl’s spouse, two of his youngsters, and a longtime buddy additionally requested San Diego Superior Courtroom Decide Kimberlee Lagotta for leniency.
Koehl addressed the decide as properly, saying “I’m extraordinarily distraught for the lack of Larry Breen’s life. There’s not a day that I’ve not thought of it and it’s haunted me … I’ve lived an sincere life. I like my household, my associates, and I’ve served my nation with nice satisfaction and honor. Please have a look at all the great I’ve accomplished and nonetheless need to do in imposing your sentence.”
Lagotta sentenced Koehl to 16 years to life, which was the utmost potential jail time period. The decide famous the jury rejected a self-defense argument in convicting him of homicide and mentioned she was troubled by the various accounts Koehl provided police through the years.
“To Mr. Koehl’s household and associates, I hear your ache,” the decide mentioned. “I’m not minimizing your ache, nonetheless, the defendant killed Mr. Breen in a fully horrific method. The defendant, not like Mr. Breen, had the chance to marry twice, to have youngsters, to work in an employment that he loved, and to get pleasure from household and associates.”
