A man who fatally stabbed his roommate at their North Park apartment was sentenced this week to 26 years to life in state prison.
Jonathan Camp, 40, was convicted by a San Diego Superior Court jury of first-degree murder and intimidating a witness in connection with the killing of 58-year-old John Baquera on July 2, 2023.
The fatal stabbing happened at the Alabama Street apartment Camp shared with his own father and Baquera.
Responding emergency personnel found the victim in his bed with 16 stab wounds, Deputy District Attorney Hailey Williams told jurors.
The prosecutor said earlier that night, Camp had repeatedly complained to his father about Baquera. Around the time of Camp’s arrest, San Diego police said there had been “an ongoing dispute in regard to the living situation between the suspect and the victim.”
At some point, Camp entered his father’s bedroom and said, “I killed him,” according to Williams.
When Camp’s father used his cell phone to call 911, Camp slapped the phone out of his father’s hands, then fled the apartment, according to the prosecutor. Camp’s father called police again just before midnight.
Police officers were still at the home when Camp returned around 4 a.m., and he was arrested.
Camp’s defense attorney, Katie Nagler, told jurors both her client and Baquera were highly intoxicated and engaged in “a heated hourslong argument” that night, which ultimately turned physical. Nagler — who argued to the jury that the killing was manslaughter, rather than murder — said Camp was “out of his mind intoxicated,” with a blood-alcohol level of around .40%. That would amount to five times the legal limit of .08% for driving in California.
The men started fighting at some point, and “Jonathan believed in that moment, in that drunken state, his life was in danger,” the defense attorney said.
Originally Published:
