Brother of Costa Mesa double murderer pleads guilty to being an accessory after the fact
Timothy Wozniak — older brother of Daniel Wozniak, a Costa Mesa man convicted of murdering two people in 2010 — was sentenced Thursday to three years of informal probation after he pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in his brother’s crimes.
Timothy Wozniak, 42, of Long Beach had previously pleaded not guilty to the felony charge in connection with the shooting deaths of Samuel Herr, 26, of Costa Mesa and Herr’s friend Juri “Julie” Kibuishi, 23, of Irvine.
On Thursday, Timothy Wozniak also was sentenced to 10 days in jail — time already served — and mandatory enrollment in an anger management program, according to Orange County Superior Court records.
His decision to change his plea was part of a deal offered by prosecutors, Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said Friday. He could have faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted at trial, Murphy said.
“He cooperated with police, he had excellent representation and he did the right thing and apologized to the families” during Thursday’s hearing, Murphy said.
Daniel Wozniak, 32, was convicted this year and sentenced to death for the two killings and a gruesome cover-up that included beheading Herr’s body and staging Kibuishi’s body to look like Herr had sexually assaulted her.
In interviews with police after his arrest, Daniel Wozniak confessed to the slayings on video after calling his then-fiancee, Rachel Buffett, from a jailhouse phone.
During the recorded phone conversation, Buffett told Daniel Wozniak that she planned to tell police about evidence that Timothy Wozniak had mentioned in passing. Prosecutors said the evidence included the murder weapon Daniel Wozniak had given to his brother to hide or burn.
Daniel Wozniak, a community theater actor seeking money to cover his rent and fund his upcoming wedding and honeymoon, hatched a plot to kill Herr, his neighbor in the Camden Martinique apartment complex off Pinecreek Drive. He sought to steal $62,000 that Herr had saved from his military service in Afghanistan.
On May 21, 2010, Daniel Wozniak lured Herr, an Orange Coast College student, to an attic at a Los Alamitos theater under the guise of needing help moving furniture, prosecutors said. In a recorded interview with police presented during his trial, he said he shot Herr in the back of the head.
Later, Daniel Wozniak — who at the time of the murders was performing as the lead in the musical “Nine” at the Hunger Artists Theatre Company in Fullerton — used an ax and a saw to remove Herr’s head, hands and a tattooed forearm from his body before dumping the parts in a Long Beach park, authorities said.
As part of an attempt to deceive detectives, he used Herr’s cellphone to send messages to Kibuishi, who was tutoring Herr, shortly after midnight May 22 to lure Kibuishi to Herr’s apartment, where he shot her twice in the head. He then partially removed Kibuishi’s clothes and staged her body to look like Herr had sexually assaulted her and fled, according to prosecutors.
Police arrested Daniel Wozniak on May 26, 2010 — two days before his scheduled wedding — while he was at his bachelor party in Huntington Beach. ATM withdrawals from Herr’s account had led police to him.
He was able to acquire only $2,000 of Herr’s money before his arrest, authorities said.
Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
