Witnesses say it was a chaotic scene the night 18-year-old Tevita Finau Vaenuku was shot and killed in Salt Lake City.
Vaenuku was shot near 1800 West and 400 North during a large July Fourth party in 2006 that ended in gunfire early the next morning. Two others, including a 10-year-old boy, suffered minor injuries from the shots fired.
A preliminary hearing for the two charged with first-degree felony murder in the shooting, Anthony David Milligan and Marco Mike Heimuli, started Wednesday in 3rd District Judge Robert Hilder's courtroom. The second day of the hearing is to continue Thursday.
Two women who were at the party told the court Wednesday that marijuana and alcohol were being shared among most of the party-goers. Several fights broke out, including a large shouting match involving a group of women, the girls testified. An estimated 60 people were at the party, according to police. Some of them had guns, according to the witnesses.
The women testified they saw three men, at least one armed, in the area where the shooting happened.
Defense attorney Clayton Simms got one of the witnesses to admit that she did not actually see Heimuli at the party but was told secondhand by someone else that he was responsible.
There was heavy security inside and outside the courtroom during the hearing. Extra baillifs were stationed all around the court to watch the two defendants and the large number of friends and family members who were in attendance, including Vaenuku's parents, who were dressed in black.
Heimuli is related to Vaenuku.
"I love them," Siasi Pisinga Vaenuku, Tevita's father, said of the two defendants. "I don't hate them. I just hate the things they did to my son."
Siasi said his parents taught him how to love and forgive. But he said that didn't mean those responsible for his son's death should go unpunished.
"I leave it to the court. I leave it to justice. I forgive them," he said.
Heimuli received an additional charge last week of damaging a jail cell, a third-degree felony.
Less than two months after Vaenuku was killed, prosecutors said Milligan was involved in another shooting at a party near 300 East and 4500 South. He was charged in 3rd District Court with first-degree felony murder in that incident. A trial is scheduled to begin in that case Tuesday.
Between the two shootings, Milligan was charged in connection with a rape in August of 2006. A trial on that charge is scheduled to begin April 1.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com