Strangled Carpenter’s Family Seeks Damages From Junkyard Owner

VISTA —  The parents of a 23-year-old Leucadia carpenter who was strangled last summer are suing a 63-year-old salvage yard owner who was charged in connection with their son’s death but later cleared of any wrongdoing by a judge.

Steve Victor, an attorney for Harvey and Lanora King, said the wrongful death lawsuit seeking $1 million in punitive damages and unspecified general damages from Eugene C. Chappee would be filed today in North County Superior Court.

Gary King died of asphyxiation in Chappee’s grip on Aug. 9. Chappee said he spotted King in his salvage yard in Leucadia on Old Highway 101 and chased him several blocks, believing he was a burglar. A scuffle ensued, and Chappee placed King in a headlock, intending to detain him for sheriff’s deputies. King died before deputies arrived.

After a routine investigation, sheriff’s homicide detectives concluded that the death was “accidental homicide,” and initially the district attorney’s office decided not to prosecute. But King’s parents, believing the case was dismissed too hastily, protested, and hired an attorney and a private investigator to unearth new evidence.

Ultimately, Phil Walden, the supervising district attorney in North County, reopened the case, and Chappee was charged with involuntary manslaughter. At his preliminary hearing in February, prosecutors argued that Chappee overreacted and used excessive force in attempting to restrain King, who was intoxicated.

But Chappee’s attorney argued that the death was an accident and that his client exhibited a “reasonable reaction” to the situation. Visiting Judge Vivian Quinn agreed, and the charges were dropped.

That verdict did not sit well with Harvey and Lanora King who maintain that Chappee’s actions were unjustified. On Wednesday, Harvey King said his family is pursuing legal action against the salvage yard owner so that, “if nothing else, Mr. Chappee will think before he acts next time.”

“More than anything, I want Mr. Chappee and our society to understand you can’t go around killing people just because of what you think they might be doing,” King said. “We still maintain that a reasonable human being wouldn’t have done what he did. I think this suit will prove our point.”

Chappee, reached by telephone, declined to comment until he has talked with his attorney.

The lawsuit charges Chappee with wrongful death, negligence, assault and battery, and false imprisonment for detaining King in a chokehold the morning he died. In addition to the $1 million in punitive damages, the Kings are seeking unspecified damages for “the loss of society, comfort, attention, services, and support” of their son.

Victor said that despite the court’s dismissal of criminal charges against Chappee, he is confident that evidence supports the wrongful death suit. He noted that the burden of proof in a civil matter is less than in criminal court, where a prosecutor must prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt.