Jury Selection Slated in Hockey Coach Murder Trial

Jury selection is slated to continue Wednesday in the murder trial of a Lake Forest man accused of stabbing two Mission Viejo friends outside an all-night restaurant.

Prosecutors contend Justin Alvin Maseo Tombleson fatally stabbed Elvis Kechechian, 26, and Hossain Saidian, 32. A Santa Margarita Catholic High hockey strength and conditioning coach, Kechechian died at the scene. His friend, .

The fatal confrontation followed a 2 a.m. argument between four men against three women inside Albatros Mexican Restaurant at 23591 Rockfield Blvd., near Lake Forest Drive. The men had earlier celebrated Saidian's birthday. The argument spilled into the parking lot where Kechechian and Saidian were stabbed.

Following his arrest, Tombleson attorney George Vincent Vargas predicted the evidence would eventually exonerate his client, who was 28 at the time.  Tombleson pleaded not guilty to the murder charges, telling the court he acted in self-defense.

However, during a pretrial hearing, prosecutors painted Tombleson as a cold-blooded killer.

After using a pocketknife to kill two men, Tombleson slept with his girlfriend until 8 a.m., and then browsed a local swap meet with her and her parents, according to investigators.

For Tombleson, the night began around 10:30 p.m., on June 10 at Rudy's Pub & Grill in Foothill Ranch, where he was socializing with his girlfriend and four other friends, according to the lead detective on the case, Orange County Sheriff's Department homicide investigator Kimberly Milewski.

Sometime before 2 a.m., Tombleson's girlfriend and two female friends drove to Albatros, a 24-hour eatery, for a late-night snack. As the trio stood in line, a man later identified as Kechechian began to call Tombleson's girlfriend derogatory names as she spoke with her boyfriend on the phone, Milewski said.

The three women began arguing with Kechechian and another man—later identified as Kechechian's brother, Aris—who the women said were both acting angrily and aggressively, according to investigators. 

As the argument intensified, Aris Kechechian spat once on Tombleson's girlfriend, then twice at one of her friends. Other customers got involved and the incident turned into an all-out brawl, witnesses told Milewski.

After restaurant employees broke up the fight, a witness heard Tombleson's girlfriend ask him on the phone to come to her assistance and within minutes saw him running up to her, then over to Kechechian's group—now standing in the parking lot near a red BMW.

Milewski testified that a witness saw Tombleson throw a punch at Aris Kechechian. In return, he was punched, knocked to the ground and kicked before making it back to his feet.

Tombleson's girlfriend told Milewski she left with her friends after seeing Tombleson return to a standing position.

The witness said it was then that Tombleson allegedly pulled a knife from the right-side pocket of his cargo shorts and stabbed Kechechian, then Saidian, using the same wide swinging motion to push the knife into their sides, one after another.

A witness said the knife hitting the men made a loud, noticeable thud, Milewski said.

Tombleson's girlfriend told Milewski in an interview soon after the stabbings that Tombleson returned that night to the house in Lake Forest where she was spending the night and that they slept until about 8 a.m. before heading north to meet her parents to browse a swap meet in Fountain Valley, her hometown.

Tombleson had a wound to his upper lip, scratches on his forehead and scuffed-up knees when he met her at a friend's residence in Lake Forest that night, the girlfriend told Milewski.

She said she didn't find out Tombleson had killed anyone until she saw news reports of two stabbings at Albatros and Tombleson told her he had done it and was sorry.

Tombleson previously spent two years in prison for separate 2004 incidents in which he pleaded guilty to battery with serious bodily injury, and assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm.