A San Diego jury on Wednesday began deliberations in an Ocean Beach murder case where the purported victim’s body was never found, and the defense has raised the possibility he’s been alive and well in Mexico since disappearing in 2017.
A prosecutor summed up his case for several hours, saying evidence such as blood spatters, purchase of an electric table saw, a shovel and bleach, as well as an admission to a friend, add up to prove that Brian Hancock stabbed Peter Bentz to death.
The motive, Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Dort said, was that Hancock believed Bentz, 68, had made a video of them having sex with each other and with a woman, then posted it on the internet, despite Hancock asking him not to.
Hancock, 49, of National City, is charged with one count of murder. His trial opened Jan. 6 before San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Weber.
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Dort said Bentz was an organized man who went to the gym every even-numbered day and to the beach on odd-numbered days, yet was never heard from again by friends or family after a visit to the Pt. Loma 24-Hour Fitness on Nov. 20, 2017. Dort said Hancock killed Bentz the next day and dumped his body somewhere in rural Campo on Nov. 24.
The body has never been found, despite searches by San Diego police using drones and cadaver dogs. Cellphone tower records showed Hancock’s phone in the Campo area.
Defense attorney Jimmy Rodriguez told jurors the case against his client was thin and that Bentz had told Hancock he was planning to go to Mexico for a vacation.
He noted that two prosecution witnesses, including Hancock’s ex-wife, first told police the defendant was not involved in the Bentz’s death, but changed their stories after receiving immunity from prosecution as accessories to the crime.
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Blood on carpeting in Bentz’s Greene Street apartment may have been his, but there was no evidence of when it got there, Rodriguez said.
And, he added, the prosecution “threw out dismemberment” as a theory on how Hancock got Bentz out of the apartment, but police found no neighbors who heard a power saw or anything else suspicious.
Dort said Hancock asked his ex-wife to help him get the body out because it was too heavy for him, but she declined. Angelina Hancock testified that she was with him when he drove to Logan Heights and tossed a paper bag over a fence. It contained Bentz’s driver’s license and paper towel or napkin stained with Bentz’s blood.
A girlfriend of Hancock testified that he told her he had killed Bentz, stabbing him seven times because he was so large.
The defense attorney said the two men had sex and drugs in common, “but it didn’t go any further than that.”
More than 30 witnesses testified, including Hancock, an electrician, who admitted to cheating on his wife, using drugs daily and having sex for money with Bentz several times after they met through a social media site in the fall of 2017.
Hancock testified that he and a woman he had dated previously went to Bentz apartment, where they took turns having sex with each other Nov. 19. After they parted company, the woman texted Hancock saying she had been told their activities may have been posted on the internet.
Hancock said he went to see Bentz on Nov. 21 to talk to him about whether the group sex had been recorded and posted. He said Bentz denied it and even offered Hancock $3,000 to be in group sex video with several other people that day. Hancock said he got $600 in cash and the use of Bentz’s car and credit card to make up the difference.
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Credit card receipts collected by homicide investigators showed that Hancock had bought bleach, a table saw, a shovel, a mattock digging tool at several stores late Nov. 21. Dort said Hancock spent several days cleaning Bentz’s apartment, but overlooked some spatters of the victim’s blood on walls and larger spots on the carpet.
Police found Bentz’s car in Mira Mesa, with the keys in it and a window open, Dort said.
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January 23, 2020 at 07:35AM
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Ocean Beach murder case with body never found goes to jurors - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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