Trial Opens in Slaying of Santa Monica Model

By City News Service

DNA evidence points clearly to a 47-year-old woman as the killer of a one-time Maxim magazine model who was slain in her Santa Monica apartment, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday. But a defense attorney insisted the woman had no motive to kill, despite allegations she was hired to murder the victim.

Prosecutors contend Kelly Soo Park beat and strangled 21-year-old Juliana Redding in response to a failed business deal involving the victim's father and a  doctor she once dated. Redding was found dead March 16, 2008, in her apartment in the 1500 block of Centinela Avenue. Police went to the apartment after her mother reported that her daughter had missed a photo shoot and the mother was unable to contact her.

In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Stacy Okun-Wiese told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury that material on Redding's neck, a tank top she was wearing when she was killed, her cell phone, the inside of the front door to her apartment and a knob on her kitchen stove all bore Park's DNA.

A fingerprint and blood also matched Park, the prosecutor said. Redding "unsuccessfully tried to fight off a woman ... a woman who beat and strangled her," Okun-Wiese said, showing photos of Redding's bruised body as it was found in her apartment amidst signs of a struggle.

Police and a firefighter who responded to the scene smelled gas in the apartment and found a knob on the kitchen stove turned on and a candle burning, which "could have caused an explosion," Okun-Wiese said, eliciting sobs from family and friends of Redding in the courtroom.

A neighbor heard sounds of a fight or struggle, but didn't call police, according to Okun-Wiese.

Park didn't know Redding, but prosecutors contend she was hired by her employer, Dr. Munir Uwaydah, to kill the young model.

In court papers filed shortly after Park's June 2010 arrest, the investigating officer on the case wrote that the victim's father, Greg Redding, was involved in a business negotiation with Uwaydah that "fell apart'' five days before his daughter was killed.

Park also received $250,000 from Uwaydah about three weeks before the killing, and Park's father received a $113,400 payment three days before Park's arrest, according to the court papers signed by Santa Monica police Detective Karen Thompson.

Documents from Uwaydah's business also showed a payment to Park made to a bank account in Korea in June 2010, the detective wrote in the court papers.

Uwaydah has not been charged in the case. He left the country and is believed to be living in Lebanon. Defense attorney George Buehler said in his brief opening statement that his client had no motive to kill Redding and "the DNA evidence, the fingerprint is not conclusive.''

"DNA doesn't tell you when it got there and how it got there,'' Buehler said. Buehler's opening statement was abbreviated due to a last-minute ruling by Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy, who shut down the defense team's plan to suggest Redding's boyfriend was the real killer.

 Kennedy said that while John Gilmore "doesn't sound like the greatest boyfriend to me,'' there was no evidence he had ever used physical violence against Redding and to suggest otherwise would "deflect the jury's attention away from the issues in this case.''

Buehler said he planned to immediately appeal the judge's decision. He argued that while Gilmore hadn't physically attacked Redding, there was evidence of "kicking doors, fist through a wall ... damage to her car.''

"A jury ought to be able to hear that evidence,'' Buehler said. Kennedy also denied a request to grant immunity from unrelated prosecution to Gilmore's one-time fiancee Melissa Ayala in exchange for her testimony in the case.

Buehler's claimed Ayala could testify that Gilmore choked her and told her, "You're gonna feel like Juliana.'' Kennedy said Ayala -- who is awaiting trial on an assault with a deadly weapon charge against Gilmore -- had "plenty of motive for her not to be truthful'' based on "restraining orders going back and forth between the parties'' and pointed out that by the time of the alleged choking incident, the manner of Redding's death was well-known.

"This would be a can of worms that would be a huge diversion from the issues in this case,'' the judge said.

Redding's father took the stand as the prosecution's first witness and told the seven-man, five-woman jury that he had been negotiating an offer to work as a pharmacist at Golden State Pharmacy in Camarillo for Uwaydah, an orthopedic surgeon, and to produce a pain cream Uwaydah had created. They had agreed on a salary of close to "$400,000 to $500,000 plus an additional bonus structure'' based on the quantities of the cream produced, Redding testified.

Juliana had been dating the doctor, but broke off the relationship when her father discovered Uwaydah "lied about his age, he lied about his kids'' and was married, according to Redding.

"I thought that he was basically a fraud,'' he testified. Later, after Uwaydah sought to vindicate himself, Redding decided he'd made a mistake by cutting off the business negotiations.

"I felt kind of foolish that maybe I'd wrongly accused him of something,'' Redding said. They restarted negotiations, which ultimately broke down over concerns about whether the pharmacy was appropriately licensed to compound the cream, along with some specific deal points, including whether Redding would have access to what he called the smaller of the doctor's three jets.

Days after both parties traded letters backing away from the deal, Redding was killed. Kelly Duncan, a "very good friend'' of Redding's who had dinner with her at a Westwood sushi restaurant the night she died, testified that she had never met or heard of Park before her arrest.

Redding attended Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, where she played on the golf team. She moved from Arizona and had a role in a small 2005 movie, and was featured in a photo layout in Maxim magazine, winning one of the magazine's "Hometown Hottie'' contests.