A gay City Heights man posed as a divorced straight man “looking for fun” and he drugged and sexually assaulted a 23-year-old man whose body was found about 800 feet from the defendant’s home in 2008, a prosecutor told a jury on June 1.
Deputy District Attorney Gretchen Means said Philong Huynh, 40, was linked to the death of Dane Williams, of Huntington Beach, by DNA, dog hair and fiber evidence. Means told jurors Huynh is linked to other sexual assaults of young straight men who were drugged and could not remember what happened.
Huynh is charged with murder in Williams’ death along with oral copulation and sodomy of an intoxicated person. Huynh is also accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old sailor in 2009. Clues from the 2009 incident led to Huynh’s arrest in September 2009.
Means told the jury Huynh attended two years of medical school and took courses about pharmaceutical drugs, their effect on the body and how alcohol increases the effect. She said “his specialized knowledge of those drugs” was used to make his victims “weak and vulnerable” to sexual assaults.
“Dane fell prey to the defendant’s ruse. He was an easy target,” Means told the San Diego Superior Court jury.
Williams vanished Jan. 26, 2008, from the Gaslamp Quarter after he had been drinking heavily. His body was found three days later in an alley and the body was surrounded by a comforter riddled with dog hair that came from Huynh’s mother’s dog.
DNA evidence showed that Huynh’s semen was found in the victim’s mouth, anus and shirt, she said. Williams’ blood alcohol level at death was .17, which is twice the legal limit, and he had tranquilizers in his system, said Means.
A sailor is expected to testify that he met Huynh downtown and they drank together. He said he developed a terrible headache and was given pills from a Tylenol bottle in Huynh’s car. The sailor testified in 2010 that he blacked out that night, but kept Huynh’s cell phone number.
Means said the sailor called Huynh days later and asked him if he gave him Tylenol or some other drug. Huynh hung up, and disconnected the cell phone hours later, but that was the clue that led police to him.
Huynh’s attorney, Marian Gaston, told jurors, “He may have done some very bad things, but he’s not a killer.”
Huynh has pleaded not guilty and remains in the central jail without bail. If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
