Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Murder of Scott Michael Hughes

Text: In April 1978, Scott Michael Hughes, 18 years old, was a United States Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. He stood five feet 10 inches tall and weighed 170 to 180 pounds. On Friday, April 14, 1978, Hughes told a fellow Marine he was going to travel to the State of Washington to visit his brother, who was suffering from cancer. The following Sunday, around 7:00 a.m., Hughes's dead body was found about four feet from the eastbound on-ramp to the Riverside Freeway in Anaheim at Euclid. There were no laces in Hughes's shoes. The cause of death was found to be cerebral anoxia due to ligature strangulation. Ligature marks, consistent with a belt, appeared on the neck, most prominently on the left side. There were antemortem abrasions to the left temple, left eye, and left side of the chin. Hughes's scrotum had been cut and the left testicle excised, probably after death. There were road burns on the body. No alcohol was present in Hughes's blood, but diazepam was present at about three times the therapeutic level. This would have caused sleepiness and mental confusion. Trace evidence consisting of fibers was collected from Hughes's clothing and compared with fibers from the carpet in the apartment on Molino Avenue in Long Beach where defendant lived in April 1978. (Defendant and his roommate/lover, Jeff Seelig, had moved to a different house, but the carpet had not been changed between April 1978 and June 1983, when the samples were collected.) The fiber taken from Hughes's shorts and fibers from the Molino Avenue apartment carpet did not differ in terms of color, fiber type, diameter of the fibers, cross-sectional appearance, longitudinal appearance, delustrance or melting points. It could not be conclusively established, however, that the fiber on Hughes's shorts came from defendant's apartment on Molino Avenue. Fibers from a throw rug at defendant's house on Roswell Avenue were also compared with fibers taken from Hughes's clothing; they were found to be consistent with each other in terms of material, shape, melting points, and delustrance. The prosecutor argued to the jury that the entry EUCLID on defendant's list, alluding to the location of the body, referred to Hughes. Terry Goodman testified he and defendant had a mutual friend who lived on Euclid Avenue in Long Beach, but Goodman had never heard defendant refer to the friend as Euclid.