Portland Adult Entertainment: Guilty verdict returned in West Longview stabbing trial
by kingofportlandAsencio was airlifted from Longview to Oregon Health and Science University in Portland with “life-threatening injuries,” the documents said. He recovered and testified during the two-and-a-half day trial.
“All that prevented a man from dying was the skill and techniques used by the doctors at the hospital,” Deputy Prosecutor James Smith told the jury during closing arguments Thursday.
Rodriguez, Smith said, “stabbed a man in the heart, almost took from him his life, all that he had, all that he ever could have. … Why did he do it? For the pettiest of reasons.”
Rodriguez told sheriff’s investigators he was in a bedroom when the stabbing occurred. Defense attorney Richard Suryan suggested Thursday there were too many discrepancies in witnesses’ accounts to establish that his client stabbed Asencio. Suryan also raised questions about the character and motives of the prosecution witnesses, suggesting that some of the young women at the apartment that night are prostitutes.