The trial for a Pacoima man accused of stabbing his friend from rehab to death in Canyon Country is set to head before a jury next week.
The man, David Alonso Figueroa, 39, is first scheduled to return to court Friday for a readiness hearing. Then, following the weekend on June 13, the process for jury selection is scheduled to begin in Department F of the San Fernando Courthouse at 8:30 a.m.
On July 30, 2018, detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Homicide Bureau began investigating the stabbing death of 29-year-old Brent Hariston, of Canyon Country.
Hariston and Figueroa, according to the late Homicide Detective John Corina, were friends who had previously met in rehab.
The two men, according to Corina, were scheduled to meet up that morning and head to work together. An argument then is believed to have broken out between the two, and that’s when detectives believe Figueroa pulled out a knife and stabbed Hariston multiple times.
The suspect then allegedly fled the scene right as deputies were pulling up. The victim’s mother had called the Sheriff’s Department when she first saw the altercation.
Deputies established a containment in the neighborhood and eventually found and apprehended Figueroa, who they believe to be the suspect.
The stabbing victim was rushed to the hospital but died later in the hospital, Corina said, describing the stabbing wounds as in the upper body.
“We found the murder weapon at the scene,” Corina said at the time. “It was a few houses down from the house where Hariston was found.”
