More than four decades after a 22-year-old woman was found dead in an abandoned Phoenix mortuary, a Maricopa County jury found her killer guilty of first-degree murder.
David Booker Kizziar, 73, represented himself during the trial and argued that his limited mobility made it impossible for him to have murdered Aimee See.
Prosecutors indicted Kizziar after his DNA was matched to semen found on a sleeping bag beneath See’s body.
Prosecutors said it proved he sexually assaulted See as she lay unconscious and dying. Kizziar, who represented himself, argued the sleeping bag could have been stained elsewhere and later carried into the mortuary.
Jurors began deliberating July 9 and returned after the weekend to deliver their verdict July 13.
What happened the night Aimee See was killed at an abandoned mortuary?
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Police found See on Feb. 17, 1984, inside the vacant Henry Foreman Mortuary near Third Avenue and McDowell Road. She was naked on a sleeping bag, with clothing covering her head and face and a wire around her neck.
Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Elizabeth Reamer told jurors that See was struck six times in the head and strangled while she was still alive.
Blood evidence showed See was attacked near the front of the building before she was moved to a back preparation room. Prosecutors said Kizziar sexually assaulted her as she lay unconscious and dying.
Reamer argued that the repeated blows and strangulation gave the killer time to reflect, supporting premeditated murder. She also argued that the killing occurred during a kidnapping and sexual assault, supporting felony murder.
In Arizona, first-degree murder can be proven through premeditation or by proving the murder was committed while another crime was taking place.
The law did not require prosecutors to prove a motive, Reamer said. The state’s closest explanation of motive was that the killer intended to sexually assault See. There was no reason to move See farther into the building if the goal was to injure or kill her, Reamer said.
DNA found at crime scene pointed to Kizziar
The case went unsolved for decades until newer testing produced a male DNA profile from the semen collected at the crime scene. Police partially matched it to a relative of Kizziar. They later interviewed Kizziar and obtained the DNA through a cheek swab and matched it to the profile.
Records did not specify if Kizziar consented to the swabbing, but he did not argue that it was done without his consent in court.
Reamer said the strongest evidence was that the semen stain was found on the sleeping bag beneath See’s vaginal area.
Kizziar denied ever entering the mortuary or sexually assaulting See.
To accept his account, Reamer argued, jurors would have to believe Kizziar deposited semen on a sleeping bag somewhere else and another person carried the sleeping bag into a building.
Kizziar said he had never entered that building, and See’s body happened to be placed over the stain where her DNA was found mixed with his.
He also said investigators found shoe prints and other items belonging to unknown people, never recovered a murder weapon and did not test some possible evidence, including a cigarette butt.
“Just a stain on a movable object,” Kizziar told jurors.
Kizziar said he couldn’t physically commit the murder
Court records show that Kizziar has osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly called brittle bone disease.
He uses a wheelchair and argued that his height, limited reach and inability to walk without holding onto something made the state’s version impossible. He had those limitations at the time of the murder.
He pointed to the dusty scene and the absence of wheelchair tracks, handprints or knuckle marks.
He questioned how, from a wheelchair or the floor, he could strike a 5-foot-5 woman repeatedly in the head and then move her body.
Reamer countered with video testimony from a woman who knew him. She described him as strong and independent.
In police interviews played to the jury, Kizziar spoke about being able to drag his wheelchair up stairs, climb through a window and “get around pretty good” outside the chair when he was younger.
Kizziar closed by asking jurors to examine the state’s assumptions through experience and common sense. He argued for the jury not to have a mixed verdict, which would lead to a hung jury and mistrial.
“I would prefer that you either find me guilty or not guilty for one reason: keep down the possibility of a question mark hanging over your head for the rest of your lives because you were not sure of what you voted was right.”
The jury chose guilty.
Kizziar faces a life sentence at a hearing scheduled for Aug. 13.
