Mistrial Declared In Stepfather-Killing Trial

SAN DIEGO -- A hopelessly deadlocked jury prompted a judge to declare a mistrial Thursday in the murder trial of a 20-year-old man accused of shooting his stepfather and trying to make it look like a robbery gone bad.

After deliberating over parts of three days, jurors told Superior Court Judge Frederic Link that they were deadlocked 7-5, with the majority voting for guilt.

Jurors left the courthouse without commenting to reporters.

Nathaniel Gann is charged with first-degree murder and a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait in the July 19, 2007, killing of 63-year-old Timothy MacNeil, a criminal defense attorney.

He could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted in a retrial.

Link set Gann's retrial for Jan. 20, which is the trial date for his 19-year-old sister, Brae Hansen, who allegedly recruited him to carry out the crime.

The defendants could be tried separately or at the same time with two juries. That will be decided later.

Defense attorney Ricardo Garcia said after the mistrial that he wished the outcome would have been different.

"I really appreciate how conscientious and careful they (the jurors) were," Garcia said outside court. "I said from the beginning of the case that I thought (the evidence) was problematic."

Garcia pointed to a black ski mask that he said wasn't documented by police when it was found behind MacNeil's residence. A re-test determined that Gann's DNA was on the mask.

The attorney also argued that a story that Gann supposedly told a cellmate detailing the murder couldn't be trusted.

Garcia said in his closing argument that a neighbor, who saw a man running from MacNeil's home, couldn't identify Gann, which he argued was direct evidence that "Mr. Gann wasn't there."

Two other witnesses also were unable to identify Gann or his truck, Garcia said.

No latent fingerprints were found on the gun discovered behind the victim's home, and no physical evidence was found in Gann's truck, the defense attorney told the jury.

Garcia said a long hair found in the cylinder of the gun probably belonged to Hansen, who, he alleged, fired the shots that killed MacNeil and discarded the murder weapon in the backyard.

The attorney said Gann had no motive to kill MacNeil, but Hansen wanted to hurt her stepfather because she felt rejected by him and because she wanted jewelry and other things she thought she deserved after her mother died.

Deputy District Attorney George Bennett told the jury that Gann should be convicted of first-degree murder for helping Hansen carry out a plan to kill MacNeil in the home she shared with the victim.

Bennett said Gann "came running" from Arizona when his then-17-year-old sibling summoned him to San Diego to help kill the victim. Hansen wanted her stepfather killed but couldn't do it alone, the prosecutor alleged.

The prosecutor told the jury that Hansen was just as guilty of murder as Gann, and argued that she couldn't have tied up the victim by herself.

The prosecutor warned jurors against feeling sympathy for Gann, even though both he and Hansen were abused and "cast aside" by their mother, Doreen Hansen, who killed herself about a year before MacNeil was killed on July 19, 2007.

The prosecutor said Gann -- dressed in all black -- shot MacNeil four times, then tied up Hansen "to make it look good."

The teen told a 911 operator that a masked intruder broke into the home, tied her up and shot her stepfather. She told the operator that the robber asked her stepfather for the combination to a safe and shot him when he refused to provide it.

"Timothy MacNeil was not killed by a masked intruder," Bennett said in his opening statement. "Timothy MacNeil was not murdered by an unknown robber. Timothy MacNeil was murdered by his own children -- his own stepchildren -- in his own home."

Police initially treated Hansen as a victim, but arrested her hours later based on what detectives said were inconsistencies in her story.

Gann fled to Arizona, where he was arrested.

Gann told the cellmate, Charles Goodman, things about the murder that only the killer would know, Bennett told the jury.

The prosecutor also said Gann couldn't account for his whereabouts in the 24 hours it took to drive to San Diego, kill MacNeil, and drive back to Arizona, where he lived with his grandmother.

Bennett told jurors there was no doubt that Gann regretted what he did, but it was too late to take it back.