Double Murder:Ex actor Gets Death sentence

Daniel Wozniak looked toward the front of the Santa Ana courtroom, his expression void of emotion as an Orange County Superior Court judge on Friday affirmed his death sentence. The courtroom fell silent.


 The victims' family and friends wiped away tears as Judge John Conley sentenced the former Costa Mesa community actor, 32, to death for killing Irvine resident Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, and her Army veteran friend Samuel Herr, 26.

 A jury had recommended in January that Wozniak be put to death for the two killings and gruesome cover-up that included beheading Herr and staging Kibuishi's body to look like she had been sexually assaulted. Had jurors or Conley chosen to spare Wozniak the death penalty, the alternative would have been life in prison without parole.

  In 2010, Wozniak was so desperate for money to cover his rent and fund his upcoming wedding and honeymoon that he hatched a plot to kill Herr, his neighbor in the Camden Martinique apartment complex off Pinecreek Drive. Wozniak sought to steal $62,000 that Herr had saved from his military service in Afghanistan. He was only able to acquire $2,000 before his arrest.

Conley said Friday that instead of an inexpensive marriage and postponing a honeymoon, Wozniak researched and carried out the two gruesome killings. :

"He wanted to do both with style and was willing to kill two young friends to accomplish this selfish goal," Conley said.

 Prosecutors said that on May 21, 2010, Wozniak lured Herr, an Orange Coast College student, to an attic in the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base under the guise of needing help moving furniture. In a recorded police interview presented during the trial, Wozniak described shooting Herr in the back of the head as he knelt. After he had been shot, Herr asked for Wozniak's help, not realizing what had happened."Something hit me," Herr said, according to Wozniak. "It felt like an electric shock."

Police arrested Wozniak on May26, 2010 two days before his wedding while he was at his bachelor party in Huntington Beach. ATM withdrawals from Herr's account had led police to him. Wozniak will be taken to San Quentin State Prison, where he will remain until his execution date.


Culled from People