Crime & Safety

Jury Convicts Mill Valley Man of Second-Degree Murder

Brutal December 2010 stabbing in tunnel connecting Sausalito and Marin City saw 22-year-old man sustain 68 stab wounds, but panel decides that the killing was not premeditated.

Nearly 15 months after the , Mill Valley resident Daryl Kumar Mears was convicted in the killing Monday morning, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

Mears, who stabbed Robertson 68 times on Dec. 15, 2010, was found guilty of second-degree murder as prosecutors were unable to convince the jury that the crime was premeditated and planned in advance.

Mears faces 16 years to life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced July 5 by Judge Andrew Sweet.

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In outlining the case for a first-degree murder charge last Wednesday, prosecutor Aicha Mievis said the incident “was, quite simply, a predatory killing.” Mievis cited earlier testimony from a man who was with Mears at the time of the killing who claimed Mears told him, “When I see him next, I’m going to gut him.” She also repeated testimony that Mears told Robertson, “I’m going to gut you now” right before stabbing him 68 times.

“Those were the last words that Larry Robertson heard,” Mievis said, eliciting gasps and sobs from Robertson’s family members in the courtroom.

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Mievis also showed the jury gruesome photos of Robertson taken during the autopsy as well as the blood-strewn scene where Robertson died.

Defense attorney Jon Rankin claimed throughout the trial that Mears was facing threats in the community over claims that he “snitched” on a fellow suspect in a prior burglary case.

Mears had claimed self-defense, saying that Robertson attacked him with a knife which he then turned on Robertson. Mears dealt that claim a major blow when he admitted under cross-examination that when he walked away from a prone Robertson and turned around to stab him two more times in the head, it wasn’t in self defense.

“Hold him accountable for what he did to Larry Robertson,” Mievis told the jury in her closing argument. “He is guilty of murder in the first degree, nothing less.”

The jury didn’t agree.


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