Witness Ties Shooting to Trial Appearance

SANTA ANA — The trial of Gunner J. Lindberg, accused of murdering former UCLA student leader Thien Minh Ly, begins Tuesday amid heightened courtroom security and with a key prosecution witness saying he was shot in April because of his connection to the case.

Lindberg could face the death penalty if he is convicted in the 1996 stabbing death of the 24-year-old Ly, who was attacked as he practiced in-line skating on the darkened tennis courts of Tustin High School. The victim was found with 14 stab wounds around his heart.

It was a rambling letter written by the 22-year-old Lindberg to his friend Walter Ray Dulaney that led police to make an arrest in the case.

Dulaney told authorities in Missouri, where he lives, that he was shot in the abdomen because of his plans to testify in the Lindberg case, Johnson County Sheriff’s Department Maj. Randy Vick said Friday.

“He claimed that he had been shot and that somebody was out to get him,” Vick said. “He said that somebody wanted to keep him from testifying.”

Orange County Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley said Friday that two local law enforcement investigators were sent to Missouri to investigate the shooting. Conley said Orange County authorities had alerted Dulaney after the shooting to some kind of threat. Authorities normally try to provide some type of protection in these situations, Conley said.

“He was back in Missouri, which made it difficult for us,” Conley said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Debbie Lloyd, who is prosecuting the case, declined to discuss the Dulaney shooting. Lindberg’s attorney, David Zimmerman, could not be reached for comment.

Dulaney is being held in Johnson County jail in connection with another shooting incident in which he fired a gun at someone and missed. He will face those charges when he is through testifying in the Lindberg trial, Vick said.

The letter Lindberg allegedly wrote to Dulaney was filled with graphic details about the Ly murder. Police said that the Feb. 23, 1996, letter revealed a firsthand knowledge of the attack that only a killer could possess.

The four-page letter, which was turned over to authorities by Dulaney, led police to the Tustin doorstep of Lindberg and his then 17-year-old neighbor and co-worker, Domenic M. Christopher. The younger man was convicted of first-degree murder for his involvement in the attack during a separate trial earlier this year.

The Dulaney shooting is the second time in recent years that a witness waiting to testify in an Orange County murder case has been shot. Ardell Williams, 19, was shot to death in 1994 before she was able to testify against William Clark, accused of killing a woman during a computer store robbery in Fountain Valley in 1991.

A second penalty phase in Clark’s trial begins Monday. He was convicted of both murders, but the jury deadlocked on whether he should be executed for the crimes. A second jury will now be asked to decide.

Also this week, it was revealed in court papers that Lindberg had tried to kill a Vietnamese inmate in the showers at Orange County Jail.

Lindberg wrote the district attorney’s office and admitted to attacking inmate Thang Le. Lindberg stated in a letter that he would “get Le” if the guards ever left them alone together, according to court documents.

The prosecution contends that the Ly murder and the attack on Le were both racial hate crimes committed by Lindberg, an alleged white supremacist. If allowed into evidence, the jailhouse attack on Le could strengthen the prosecution’s contention that Ly’s murder was a hate crime.