Cousin Quotes Defendant: Killing ‘Racial’

SANTA ANA — Gunner Lindberg said killing 24-year-old Thien Minh Ly was “better than a drug” and was done on behalf of a “racial movement,” Lindberg’s cousin testified Thursday.

Walter Ray Dulaney told the jury in Lindberg’s murder trial that the day after Lindberg sent him a letter detailing the crime, the cousins--best friends and founding members of the “Insane Criminal Posse”--spoke on the telephone.

“He told me it gave him a rush, that he liked it,” Dulaney said of the killing. “He told me he killed a Jap. That he slit his throat and stabbed him a whole bunch of times. He said it was a high.”

Ly was stabbed repeatedly and his head was stomped. The victim was a recent graduate of Georgetown University and had gone to the tennis courts of Tustin High School to practice in-line skating when he was attacked in January 1996.

Dulaney said that he was afraid of his cousin, with whom he avoided eye contact throughout his testimony.

The cousin also said that he had been shot by someone in Missouri because he was going to testify against Lindberg, 24. Just before the shot hit him, he said, someone yelled: “You want to put your cousin on Death Row? Here’s Death Row!”

But Dulaney’s testimony came under aggressive attack by defense attorney David Zimmerman, who questioned whether Dulaney had been shot at all because there is no medical or police report.

Under cross-examination, Dulaney said that he removed the inch-long bullet using tweezers and a wrench and closed the wound himself. He said he never went to the hospital but later sought medical treatment from a nurse who was a longtime friend.

Dulaney said that a metal address book he had in his pocket saved his life. He said he threw away the book and his bloody T-shirt and didn’t report it because he believed that if he got into any trouble, he would be sent to prison.

Dulaney was on probation for assault and burglary. He currently is under arrest in Missouri on suspicion of shooting at a man in that state and was in handcuffs Thursday on the witness stand. He testified that when he is in prison, he stays in the psychiatric ward.

Zimmerman has asked that a doctor examine Dulaney before court resumes on Monday to determine whether he had been shot. Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald agreed to the request.

It was the rambling four-page letter that Dulaney said Lindberg sent him that led to Lindberg’s arrest. Dulaney’s wife eventually gave Lindberg’s letter to authorities.

The letter, dated Feb. 23, 1996, was filled with graphic details about the murder that authorities said only the killer could know.

Dulaney and Lindberg made up two-thirds of a gang they called the “Insane Criminal Posse.” Dulaney said that in 1995, he and Lindberg decided to turn it into a white supremacist gang.

Although he is part Japanese, Dulaney testified that he doesn’t consider himself “any other race” other than Caucasian and said that he still considers whites to be the “dominant race.”