A McKinleyville man who stabbed and killed an intruder in August 2019 was sentenced this morning to five years of supervised probation and a year in the county jail.

Judge John Feeney suspended a seven-year prison sentence for Brian John Leiteritz, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to voluntary manslaughter and use of a deadly weapon.

Leiteritz.

Leiteritz stabbed 30-year-old Chico resident Dylon Thomas Liakos after Liakos reportedly pounded on Leiteritz’s front door and attacked him when he opened it.

As Liakos was leaving, Leiteritz chased after him and stabbed him in the back with an 8-inch kitchen knife. He was initially charged with murder, but the charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter after the preliminary hearing.

Today Deputy District Attorney Steven Steward asked Feeney to impose the prison sentence. Steward said someone should be held accountable for Liakos’s death.

“He stabbed him in the back,” Steward said. “The People are asking for prison.”

The night of the killing, Leiteritz had endured another day of harassment from his ex-girlfriend Alicia Rose. He had a restraining order against her, but she called him 114 times that day. They had been in a long dispute over property she left at his house.

Rose was friends with Liakos and enlisted his aid. About midnight that night, the power was cut to Leiteritz’s home and he called the Sheriff’s Department asking for help. As he was on the phone with the dispatcher Liakos burst in. Leiteritz was knocked down and his head was injured.

Afterward Leiteritz told the dispatcher he was going after the intruder. She advised against it, but he got a knife and ran after Liakos, stabbing him from behind. The blade punctured his lung and severed his aorta.

Liakos’s mother and sister spoke this morning, telling the judge Leiteritz deserves prison.

Thera Liakos, the sister, described her older brother as her best friend and her hero. She said Dylon was known as “a mathematical and engineering genius” who fell two points shy of a perfect score on his SAT.

He prized loyalty most, Thera said, and was unfailingly loyal to his friends.

“Dylon died the way he lived,” she said. “Helping a friend.”

Mary Liakos, his mother, said she lives two lives. One is a normal life, but in the other “my heart constantly screams in pain.”

When he was killed, Mary said, “my son was walking away.”

The mother said she still can’t believe Leiteritz was held accountable only for manslaughter.

“This was no deed of passion,” she said. “This man is a cold-blooded murderer.”

Leiteritz, 42, listened as he sat at the counsel table next to defense attorney Michael Robinson.

Mary said Dylon was a believer in Karma, and she predicted Karma will come for Leiteritz “110 percent.”

Describing her son’s death as a deadly, vicious murder, she said nothing can be done to bring him back.

“But Your Honor can keep the community safe from this vicious predator for as long as the law allows.”

Robinson, arguing for probation, said it’s obvious Liakos was a helper and a good person.

“Unfortunately it was that goodness and helpfulness that precipitated the ultimate outcome in this case,” Robinson said. “Dylon was manipulated. He was a pawn on behalf of Alicia Rose. That’s why we’re here today. Alicia Rose.”

Rose and Terrance Ford, who was with Liakos that night, were granted immunity for testifying during Leiteritz’s preliminary hearing. Who knows where Ford is, Robinson said, but Rose “is in the wind, with felony warrants pending.”

Robinson described the night of the killing as terrifying for Leiteritz. He was home alone; it was dark and rainy. He saw two men outside and then the house went dark.

It’s not like Ford and Liakos were there to deliver pizza or flowers, Robinson said. No, they went to the side of the house and cut the power line.

“If that doesn’t show a readiness to do evil I don’t know what does.”

Leiteritz was “bowled over” when he opened the front door to Liakos, he said. His blood was splattered all over the entry way.

As to the dispatcher telling Leiteritz he didn’t need to go after the intruder, “I don’t know of any law that says you have to obey a dispatcher.”

In pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, Robinson said, Leiteritz has taken responsibility for his role.

Leiteritz, asked if he had something to say, addressed Mary and Thera Liakos in the courtroom audience.

“I truly appreciate your loss and I fully understand,” he said. “There’s nothing I can say that will make this better, but I am truly sorry.”

Steward, responding to Robinson’s remarks about Alicia Rose, stressed that the villain is Leiteritz and the victim Liakos.

“It was (Leiteritz) who took it upon himself to go out there with that knife,” the prosecutor said. “When someone breaks into your home you can’t pursue them and stab them in the back.”

Steward asked that Leiteritz be taken into custody today to begin serving his jail sentence. Robinson requested a delay until Dec. 27, so Leiteritz can spend the holidays with his new wife and the child who is expected to be born in November.

Feeney chose Dec. 12 for Leiteritz to turn himself in at Humboldt County Correctional Facility.

Leiteritz posted bail, after serving 55 days, when the murder charge was reduced to manslaughter.

During the sentencing, a huge photograph of a smiling Liakos stood at the front of the courtroom. Next to it was an equally large photo of Liakos and his sister as young children.

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In other court news, Victoria Rae Rulo, a Eureka woman who left two tiny boys alone for two days, pleaded guilty today to felony child abuse with great bodily injury.

In June 2020 the children, one 13 months old and the other barely 2 years old, were left alone in their home for 48 hours. During that time, Deputy District Attorney Steven Steward told Judge Kaleb Cockrum this morning, one of the boys got his leg caught between a bed frame and a wall.

“He ultimately lost function of the leg,” Steward said.

Cockrum said he plans to suspend imposition of a nine-year prison prison sentence provided Rulo attends and succeeds in drug court.

“I’m going to give you a shot,” the judge told Rulo, who was in court in her jail-issued blue jumpsuit. “But if you squander that shot you’re looking at 9 years.”

Cockrum said he decided on probation and drug court after speaking with Deputy Public Defender Casey Russo about Rulo’s significant drug problems.

Also, he said, there may have been “some miscommunication” about who was in charge of the children.

Rulo is set for sentencing on Nov. 11.

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Sentencing was postponed today for Patrick McTigue, a former county building inspector who has admitted to grand theft and soliciting bribes.

Deputy Public Defender Casey Russo requested the delay because he and McTigue haven’t had time to go over the Probation Department’s recommendation for sentencing.

McTigue will be placed on probation but may face some jail time for his shenanigans while working as a building inspector. Not only did he offer to expedite the marijuana permitting process for those willing to pay, he bilked people into investing thousands of dollars into an imaginary marijuana-delivery service in Sacramento.

Sentencing is now set for Oct. 18.

Deputy District Attorney Steven Steward is prosecuting the case.