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Cody Flores spent his last conscious moments trying to fend off a vicious knife attack in east Morgan Hill that left him with a fatal wound to his chest, plus more than a dozen cuts on other parts of his body. A deep cut on his left hand, and other smaller cuts on his forearms, suggest he attempted to defend himself without a weapon of his own, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Pandori told the jury this week, during closing arguments in the trial for two defendants accused of murdering Flores.
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That assault happened shortly after midnight outside a mutual friend’s house party May 31, 2015. During the party, Flores had been friendly and helpful in setting up for the event, according to witness testimony and statements to police. He had spent most of the evening hanging out with Spencer Smith, 22 of Morgan Hill, who has described Flores as his friend. Smith is accused of helping to murder Flores.
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The trial for Smith and co-defendant Chase Benoit, also 22, ended with attorneys’ closing arguments this week at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. The 12-person jury went into deliberations after the closing arguments, and had not returned before the Times’ print deadline. The trial started in January.
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Benoit, a longtime friend of Smith’s said he is the one who brandished the knife and inflicted the fatal wounds that Pandori described as “hateful.” The prosecutor said this hatred for Flores goes back to 2011, when Chase Benoit was 15 years old and Flores stabbed his older brother James Benoit during a fight—a stabbing that was never reported to police.
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When Benoit found out that Flores was at the May 31, 2015 party, a birthday celebration for mutual friend Shyann Surber, he confronted him outside his truck. The two “squared off,” according to attorneys, and then Flores ran away, into a field located between Main and Diana avenues. Benoit chased him for 400 yards, catching up to him at a chain link fence, with his knife drawn.
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“You chase a guy four football fields and drive a knife into him, unarmed,” Pandori told the jury March 6, during the trial’s closing arguments. He described the May 31 knife attack as “ultra violent.” Flores’ wounds included at least eight cuts to the back of his head and neck.
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“This case is about anger and payback, and (the defendants) transformed it into fear and loathing,” Pandori said.
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Witnesses who testified earlier in the trial said after they heard commotion associated with the initial fight, they walked or drove out to the edge of the field where Benoit caught up with Flores. Pandori said, based on surveillance video from a neighbor’s property, people and vehicles began leaving the party at 12:27 a.m., just moments after detectives figure the stabbing happened. Police didn’t receive the first 911 call until 12:34 a.m.—“an eternity for someone who is bleeding out,” Pandori said.
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Some of the witnesses who saw Flores dying in a puddle of his own blood went to eat at Denny’s afterward, instead of calling 911 or helping the young man, according to attorneys.
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Flores died shortly after he arrived to the hospital that night. None of the witnesses or partygoers, including Smith, claimed to have seen the actual stabbing or physical contact between Benoit and Flores.
Competing theories
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Benoit admitted on the witness stand earlier in the trial that he alone stabbed Flores, but the reason why is in dispute. The jury is faced with the task of determining what that reason is, which could determine what type of homicide they peg him with, if they find him guilty.
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While Pandori said Benoit is lying about his motive and the stabbing was a retaliation for the 2011 incident, Benoit’s attorney offers a different theory.
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Specifically, attorney Daniel Olmos said Benoit suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the time of the stabbing, brought on by a knife attack against Benoit’s father that he witnessed in 2010 at the age of 14. That incident, which is unrelated to the Flores attack, happened outside a Morgan Hill apartment complex. A doctor who evaluated Chase Benoit testified about his disorder during the trial.
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“The evidence is overwhelming that Chase Benoit suffers from PTSD, and that influenced his actions May 31 when he saw Cody Flores at the party,” Olmos said.
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But Olmos also said Benoit acted out of fear of what Flores, who Olmos described as a “dangerous” man, might do to him. This fear is based on Facebook messages and other evidence presented during the trial that, according to Olmos, suggested Flores might be out to get him.
Circumstantial evidence
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The case against Smith is much more complicated, and there is no evidence that he “touched, fought or stabbed Cody Flores” the night of his death, Smith’s attorney Stu Kirchick said during closing arguments.
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But Pandori hasn’t argued that Smith inflicted any wounds upon Flores himself. Rather, he was an “instigator” who “aided and abetted” Benoit in the assault that ended in death. If the jury agrees, the law allows them to find him guilty of murder.
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Key to Pandori’s theory is a 10- to 15-minute gap of conversation between Benoit and Smith that occurred in Benoit’s truck just before the confrontation with Flores began. Smith had just returned from San Jose with Flores, where the two made a stop to purchase heroin in the parking lot of a grocery store, according to testimony.
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Pandori noted that text messages, which he submitted as evidence in the trial, between Smith and Benoit during this trip show that Smith “was prepared” to stab Flores out of “paranoia”—perhaps induced by drug use—that his friend was planning to hurt him.
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When Smith returned, he found Benoit, who was in a motorhome just outside the party with Surber, and urgently asked to talk to him. The two went to Benoit’s truck, then saw Flores. After Benoit began running after Flores, Smith followed. But he couldn’t keep up, and had to stop—“out of breath, vomiting,” Kirchick said.
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While Pandori thinks the defendants talked about Flores, they both denied this. Kirchick said Pandori’s theory about Smith is “speculation and assumption.”
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Kirchick added that Smith’s statements to police, which led investigators to Benoit, show that he was not involved in Flores’ death and was remorseful about the events of that evening. Smith testified that he had nothing to do with the attack on Flores, and he didn’t know anything other than what he told police.
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Benoit and Smith are charged with murder. The jury could come back with a guilty verdict for first degree murder, second degree murder or manslaughter, or a not guilty verdict, according to Judge Griffin M. J. Bonini’s instructions.
