`I Didn't Know Those Folks,' Suspect Says -- Dog Dna Links Man To Slayings

A key defendant in the so-called dog DNA double-murder trial testified yesterday in King County Superior Court that he didn't know the two people he's accused of killing and that he was asleep in bed at his parents' home in Tacoma at the time the killings occurred in Seattle's South Park neighborhood.

"I didn't know those folks," Kenneth Leuluaialii, 23, told jurors, adding that he had only briefly encountered one of them at a friend's house and had never met the other.

Leuluaialii testified that he had been partying early into the morning Dec. 9, 1996, at a Seattle nightclub with co-defendant George Tuilefano and other friends when a fight broke out.

About 3 a.m., he said, he asked Tuilefano to take him to his parents' home in Tacoma, where he fell asleep on the couch. He had been drinking heavily, he said, and the only thing he remembered after that was "being slapped in the face a few times" while he slept.

When he awakened about 11 a.m., he testified, no one was home.

A short time later, Tuilefano paged him and later sent someone to pick him up who took him to the Biltmore Motel in Lakewood, southwest of Tacoma, where he drank beer with friends and shared "war stories - things that happened in the past," he said.

He fell asleep, awakened at midnight, then fell asleep again, he testified. He awakened a second time when he heard a knock on the door. It was the police, who questioned and then arrested him.

Leuluaialii's testimony sharply contradicts previous eyewitness testimony regarding the deaths of Jay Johnson and Raquel Rivera, both 22, who were fatally shot in their South Park home early on Dec. 9, 1996.

Leuluaialii, according to three accomplices who have since reached plea agreements with prosecutors in exchange for testifying against the two murder defendants, was allegedly the ringleader and primarily responsible for the killings.

At one point, according to previous testimony, Leuluaialii demanded that another defendant shoot Johnson, just moments after Leuluaialii already had shot Johnson's dog and was about to shoot Rivera, Johnson's girlfriend.

Prosecutors say Leuluaialii and Tuilefano - along with the other accomplices - were hoping to find drugs when they kicked down the couple's front door, shot their mixed pit-bull dog, then shot Johnson and Rivera.

Defense attorneys have insisted that someone other than their clients was responsible for the killings.

Leuluaialii faces two counts of aggravated first-degree murder; Tuilefano is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Leuluaialii also is charged with first-degree animal cruelty in the dog's death.

If convicted of the murder charges, Leuluaialii could receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty. If Tuilefano is convicted, he could receive at least 40 years in prison.

Prosecutors have coined the slayings the "South Park Slaughters" and are using DNA taken from the dog - and found on jackets allegedly belonging to the defendants - as evidence to identify the killers.

It is thought to be the first time that DNA from a dog has been used as evidence in a criminal case. Blood found on a pair of pants and jacket allegedly belonging to Leuluaialii had a one-in-18-billion chance that it didn't belong to the dog, a DNA expert testified previously.

But yesterday, Leuluaialii denied owning the jacket. He said he was struck during a fight at a nightclub and implied that the blood found on pants he was wearing the day he was arrested might have come from that incident.

"Did someone hit you . . .?" asked King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Timothy Bradshaw.

"Yes," Leuluaialii replied.

"With what?"

"I don't know."

"They didn't hit you with a dog, did they?"

"No," the defendant replied.