Defendant in Double Murder, Dismemberment Heads to Court

The actor accused of murdering and dismembering a man in the Liberty Theater on the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base and then killing the victim’s friend in Costa Mesa to cover up the first murder is headed to court Friday morning.

Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 27, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Newport Beach to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial.

Wozniak could face the death penalty if he is convicted of shooting his neighbor Samuel Herr inside the Liberty Theater at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base last year so he could steal Herr’s savings account. According to the Orange County district attorney’s office, Wozniak shot Herr and then went to Herr’s apartment in Costa Mesa and lured Herr’s friend Juri “Julie” Kibuishi to the apartment by pretending to be Herr via text message. Police allege that once Kibuishi arrived, Wozniak shot her twice and staged a sexual assault.

At that point, Herr became the prime suspect in Kibuishi’s death.

According to investigators, Wozniak returned to the Liberty Theater the next day and dismembered Herr, leaving his legs and torso and dumping Herr’s head and arms at the El Dorado Park Nature Center in Long Beach. Investigators also accuse Wozniak of giving Herr’s ATM card to a 17-year-old and asking the boy to withdraw $2,000 for him. The teen was arrested, and Wozniak became the prime suspect in the slaying.

Costa Mesa police arrested Wozniak five days later during his bachelor party at Tsunami in Huntington Beach.

Wozniak has pleaded not guilty to two charges of murder and several enhancements relating to the use of a firearm and murder for financial gain.