May 8, 2008

Murder suspect testifies about surrender at border

By Ari Burack / Bay City News

A 26-year-old Daly City man accused of stabbing another man to death following a San Francisco Giants game in 2004 claimed Wednesday during his trial in San Francisco Superior Court that after fleeing to Mexico, he decided to turn himself in as an act of religious conscience.

Rafael Cuevas, then 22, was arrested at the Mexico-Arizona border about two weeks after allegedly stabbing Timothy Griffith, 21, of Redwood City, during a fight outside of then-SBC Park on the night of Sept. 17, 2004.

The incident reportedly began as crowds were leaving the game, when Griffith struck the window of Cuevas' car with his hand, and then friends on both sides brawled along Terry A. Francois Boulevard and Griffith was stabbed in the chest.

Cuevas, a former marble company worker, has been charged with murder. He contends he acted in self-defense.

Cuevas testified today that when he found out a day later that Griffith had died, "I was scared ... scared of going to jail ... and kind of, like, devastated."

"I don't think it's possible to explain what it feels like when you find out you killed somebody," Cuevas told jurors as he was questioned by his attorney, Michael Gaines.

"I ran," Cuevas said.

He said he and family members drove south to his grandfather's property in the northern state of Sonora, Mexico, crossing the border on foot because he feared authorities would recognize his car.

Staying there for a few days, Cuevas said he decided to take a pilgrimage to a religious festival in Magdalena, several miles away.

"I was just praying that I could be forgiven for killing somebody," he testified. "I was a lot more worried about my soul than my body," he went on.

Cuevas said it was then that he decided to call his father and make plans to surrender himself.

"I came to the decision that the honorable thing to do was to face the situation that I'd gotten myself into," Cuevas said.

Listed at the time as one of San Francisco's 10 most wanted fugitives, authorities reported on Oct. 1, 2004, that Cuevas had been taken into custody at the Nogales border crossing without incident, after a warrant check by border protection officers performing an anti-terrorism exercise.

Under cross-examination this afternoon by Assistant District Attorney Harry Dorfman, Cuevas said that he did not feel his life had been in danger when he and Griffith were exchanging blows.

But when another man grabbed him around the neck from behind, Cuevas testified, "I felt they posed a threat to my life, at the time ... the two of them."

Cuevas told Dorfman that the knife he used in the attack - which was later found with blood on it in his jacket, along with his ticket to the ballgame - had been given to him by his girlfriend, and that he kept it with him at all times.

"It comes in handy," Cuevas said.

Cross-examination resumes today at 9:30 a.m.