Dusty Harless: Stabbing, Retrial, and Manslaughter Verdict

The Dusty Harless case is the decade-long San Diego prosecution that followed the April 18, 1996 stabbing death of 25-year-old former national AAU wrestling champion Dustin “Dusty” Harless during a street confrontation in Ocean Beach. His killer, David Genzler, was first convicted of second-degree murder in 1996, saw that verdict thrown out on appeal because the trial judge had improperly removed his defense attorney, and was retried and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He walked out of custody on February 14, 2001, on a sentence of time served. Allegations that a San Diego deputy district attorney coached the key eyewitness to lie later drove a federal civil rights lawsuit that ended in settlement.¹

What Happened the Night of the Stabbing

Around 2:38 a.m. on April 18, 1996, Harless and his fiancée, Sky Flanders, left a bar in Ocean Beach. Genzler, also 25, pulled up in his car and offered Flanders a ride. Harless walked over to confront him, and the two men fought. During the struggle Genzler drew a four-inch knife and stabbed Harless once, severing his aorta. Harless died at the scene.² Genzler drove off, but police traced his license plate, and he surrendered the next day.³

The factual dispute that would drive both trials was already present that night. Genzler said Harless charged him, punched him, slammed him to the pavement, and pinned his arm, and that a bystander named Scott Davis, a Naval officer who worked as a bouncer and knew Harless, kicked him in the head. He said he stabbed Harless to get free. Prosecutors pointed to Harless’s blood on the front of Genzler’s shirt as evidence the two men had been face-to-face, not with Genzler pinned underneath.⁴

The First Trial and Why the Murder Conviction Was Reversed

Before the first trial, Genzler’s ex-girlfriend Sherry Logel testified under a grant of immunity that she had delivered a box containing bloody clothing and a knife to Genzler’s defense attorney, Gerald Blank. Blank acknowledged getting the clothing (which he turned over to prosecutors) but denied ever receiving a knife. Deputy District Attorney Peter Longanbach moved to remove Blank as defense counsel, saying he would call both Logel and Blank as trial witnesses. At the recusal hearing itself, Logel testified that she had lied about giving Blank a knife. The trial judge removed Blank anyway.⁵

Genzler was tried with substitute counsel and convicted of second-degree murder in 1996. He received 20 years to life.² The California Court of Appeal reversed. It held that the recusal of Blank had been improper. It also found that the evidence would have supported a jury instruction on involuntary manslaughter under a theory of imperfect self-defense, meaning an honest but unreasonable belief in the need to use deadly force. The court did not reach the separate misconduct claims, and it ordered a new trial.¹

The Witness-Coaching Allegations

The prosecution’s case relied heavily on Flanders, the only civilian eyewitness. Her account changed sharply between the night of the killing and her trial testimony.

On the night Harless died, Flanders told officers that Harless had crossed the street to Genzler’s car, that the men exchanged punches, that Harless “flipped” Genzler to the ground, and that Genzler stabbed him while Harless was holding him down. She also told police that Harless was a skilled wrestler with a history of street fighting.¹ That version largely matched Genzler’s self-defense claim.

After Flanders met with investigator Jeffrey O’Brien, and then jointly with O’Brien and Longanbach on April 29, 1996, her account shifted. At the preliminary hearing and at both trials she said she remembered little of the fight because she was distracted by Davis’s arrival, dropped the description of Harless’s fighting history, and testified that she saw Davis pulling Genzler off Harless. That last detail contradicted her original statement that Genzler had been underneath.¹

Davis’s story moved the same direction. In his April 19, 1996 police interview he said Genzler jumped out of the car and chased Harless and Flanders as the couple walked away hand in hand. After meeting with O’Brien on April 25, Davis said “upon reflection” he had not actually seen them hand in hand, and at the preliminary hearing he testified the couple had been standing several feet apart when the fight began.¹

At the second trial, Flanders admitted she had been evasive about Harless’s fighting history and said she had felt pressure from Longanbach and O’Brien not to disclose it.¹ She later told Forensic Files she had not been truthful in the first trial and that the prosecutor had coached her to withhold information helpful to the defense.³

The Retrial and the Manslaughter Verdict

Because of the misconduct allegations, the San Diego District Attorney’s office recused itself, and the California Attorney General’s office prosecuted the retrial.¹

Genzler’s defense looked different the second time. Ned Blass, a Wrestling Hall of Fame member, demonstrated a wrestling hold showing how Genzler could have been pinned face-down during the struggle. Defense lawyers used forensic animation to show how he could have flipped over immediately after stabbing Harless, and an expert testified that because a severed aorta spurts blood at intervals, Harless might not have been actively bleeding in the split second before Genzler turned face-up. That gave the jury a way to reconcile the blood on the front of Genzler’s shirt with the pinned-underneath version.⁴ Flanders’s original police statement, describing Harless as having Genzler pinned, was now part of the defense case. Toxicology showing alcohol and traces of cocaine in Harless’s system also came in.⁶

The jury returned a verdict of involuntary manslaughter. The judge sentenced Genzler to time served, and he was released on February 14, 2001.¹

Genzler’s Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit

After his release, Genzler sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that Longanbach and O’Brien had suborned perjury by telling Flanders she needed to lie about what she saw and about Harless’s violent past to secure a conviction. He also sued three supervisors: former San Diego District Attorney Paul Pfingst and prosecutors Gregory Thompson and James Pippen.¹

Longanbach and O’Brien asked for absolute prosecutorial immunity. In 2005, the Ninth Circuit denied it. The court found a genuine factual dispute over whether the two had been doing “police-type investigative work” rather than courtroom advocacy when they met with Flanders and allegedly shaped her testimony. Those meetings happened before the preliminary hearing, while the investigation was still active, which cut against the advocacy characterization. That left them with, at most, qualified immunity. The supervisory defendants did win summary judgment; their conduct was found to be “advocacy intimately associated with the judicial process.”¹

By November 2006, Genzler had settled individually with Longanbach and O’Brien, and San Diego County had agreed in principle to settle the remaining claims. The amounts were not disclosed.⁷

What Happened to Prosecutor Peter Longanbach

Longanbach’s career unraveled on a separate track. In November 2001 he pleaded guilty to a felony count of grand theft for running his personal real estate business from the San Diego District Attorney’s office using staff, fax machines, copiers, and telephones between 1992 and 2000. The plea followed a 17-month California Attorney General investigation and a grand jury indictment on 12 felony counts, including misuse of public funds and embezzlement. He paid $25,000 in restitution. The felony was later reduced to a misdemeanor after he completed more than 350 hours of community service.⁸

The State Bar of California placed him on interim suspension effective January 7, 2002. In February 2004 the California Supreme Court imposed a three-year suspension, stayed, with three years of probation and an actual two-year suspension, crediting time already served on interim suspension. In October 2004, the State Bar Court granted early relief from the actual suspension after finding he had shown rehabilitation and fitness to practice.⁹

The witness-coaching conduct itself was separately investigated as a possible crime. During that inquiry, Longanbach invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In an unrelated 1998 matter, a San Diego Superior Court judge had also found that he “willfully violated both the spirit and the letter” of discovery laws.¹⁰

1
FindLaw. Genzler v. Longanbach
2
Parents of Murdered Children. Dustin Eric Harless “Buster”
3
Forensic Files Now. Dusty Harless: Death by Testosterone
4
Forensic Files Now. Dusty Harless
5
Justia. Genzler v. Longanbach, 410 F.3d 630
6
Forensic Files Now. Dusty Harless: Loose Ends
7
San Diego Union-Tribune. County to Settle Lawsuit Over Alleged Misconduct
8
California State Bar. Peter James Longanbach – California Bar JournalPeter Longanbach Conviction Reduced
9
California State Bar Court. In the Matter of Longanbach, Case No. 04-V-12515
10
California State Bar. Peter James Longanbach – California Bar Journal