A 38-year-old man lured a teenage prostitute to meet him in front of an upscale home in Yorba Linda, where he stabbed her to death in revenge for the theft of thousands of dollars, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Larry Soo Shin had arranged to have the 17-year-old victim — Aubreyanna Sade Parks — stay with him for a week for $3,000 on Feb. 4, 2014, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Troy Pino.
The meeting point was Mirkwood Run and Live Oak Lane, although Shin lived about 1 1/2 miles away with his mother at the time, Pino said. Shin falsely told Parks that his “wife” was out of town and that he needed to “sneak” her into the house through the garage, the prosecutor said.
The last text exchange between the two was shortly before 5 a.m., according to Pino, who said a bicyclist called 911 about 5:40 a.m. to report seeing the victim’s body.
Seven months before the killing, Shin “dated” a Keisha Clark of Gardena for a couple of weeks until she “betrayed” him by stealing about $20,000 from him while he was doing his job replenishing ATMs, Pino said. Parks, who lived in Gardena, used the alias Keisha Clark.
Parks was listed as a runaway at the time of her death and had been picked up by vice officers in January 2014, according to Santa Ana police. She was placed in a shelter in Huntington Beach, but she ran away before her death.
Parks suffered 38 stab wounds, many of them defensive wounds as she struggled against her attacker, Pino said. She lost her pinkie finger in the attack, he said, and left blood on a wrought-iron fence as she tried to get away from her killer.
The victim had a box cutter on her, but she never had a chance to use it to defend herself, Pino said.
Shin sustained a cut on his hand that was so serious he drove to a hospital in Corona to have it treated, bypassing a medical center five minutes from his home, the prosecutor said.
A doctor did not buy Shin’s claim that he fell and cut his hand, so he called police, Pino said.
Police searched Shin’s Prius in the hospital parking lot and found the victim’s cell phone, with the battery removed, and the murder weapon, Pino said. The cell phone battery had been in Shin’s pocket, he said.
Blood on the victim’s ankle was found to match the defendant’s, and the murder weapon contained blood from the defendant and victim, Pino alleged.
“She was not an angel. She had issues like we all do,” Pino said of the victim while asking jurors to “hold the defendant accountable” for the teen’s killing.
Shin’s attorney, Ed Welbourn, said he may make an opening statement later in the trial.