A couple was ordered Friday to stand trial for murder in the beating death of a Pacific Beach man who was attacked in his motel room on April 14.
\nJoaquin Tuttle, 40, was hospitalized after an intruder severely beat him in the San Diego Motel on Mission Bay Drive, but he died at Scripps La Jolla Hospital on April 21 from blunt force trauma and contributing conditions.
\nCameron Matthew Parker, 29, and Samantha Grace Passmore, 24, were also staying at the same motel, but security camera footage showed them leaving quickly after Tuttle was stabbed and beaten.
\nTestimony in the preliminary hearing took up most of Friday before San Diego Superior Court Judge Kathleen Lewis and she ordered them both to next appear in court on August 22.
\nAttorney Monique Carter, who represents Passmore, argued that she not be held to answer for murder, saying surveillance cameras showed she only paused four seconds looking inside at Tuttle\u2019s motel room before leaving.
\n“She simply opened the door. She\u2019s not responsible and she\u2019s not culpable,” said Carter.
\nDeputy District Attorney Melissa Vasel said Tuttle was killed as a result of a burglary of his motel room and the felony murder rule applied in which all participants should be held accountable.
\nCarter said Passmore had “no meaningful relationship” with Parker and had only been together a week. They stayed in the same room.
\nLewis said the quick flight by the couple was evidence of fleeing the scene of a crime. She found probable cause to order them both to stand trial for murder.
\nTuttle\u2019s girlfriend testified Passmore threatened her 7-8 times after he was stabbed and hospitalized. The girlfriend, whose name is being withheld at the request of the prosecutor, testified Passmore told her to delete all her text messages from her about Tuttle.
\nSan Diego Police officer Michah Vanesler testified Tuttle told him in the hospital he didn\u2019t know the muscular man who beat him, but he might have been “a jealous boyfriend” of a woman.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple was ordered Friday to stand trial for murder in the beating death of a Pacific Beach man who was attacked in his motel room on April 14. Joaquin Tuttle, 40, was hospitalized after an intruder severely beat him in the San Diego Motel on Mission Bay Drive, but he died at Scripps La […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Couple to stand trial for Pacific Beach murder","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}