Also guilty of dissuading a witness, he could get 47 years to life due to record, prosecutor says

On Thursday a jury found Tyler Ostertag guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Newbury Park High School senior Daniel Morales in 2015.

The Ventura County Superior Court jury of six men and six women deliberated for two full days before convicting Ostertag. Jurors also found true a special allegation that he used a knife in the crime, which could add to his sentence.

Jurors also found the Camarillo man guilty on a second count of dissuading a witness from testifying, a felony.

Ostertag showed no reaction in court. After verdicts were read, Judge Derek Malan ordered him returned to jail without bail and scheduled his sentencing date for May 10.

With his prior convictions, Ostertag could get up to 47 years to life, Senior Deputy District Attorney Blake Heller said outside the courtroom.

Prosecutors wanted Ostertag convicted of first-degree murder, saying he willfully and deliberately plunged a knife into the chest of 16-year-old Morales on Aug. 31, 2015, during a fight at a Taco Bell in Camarillo.

Although the knife pierced his heart, Morales survived some 10 hours before dying the next day at a hospital during surgery.

After stabbing the teen, who had transferred from Adolfo Camarillo High to Newbury Park high in his senior year to play football, Ostertag drove away, throwing the knife off the Upland Road bridge.

Within an hour of the stabbing, he called Joseph Hunt, a friend of Morales’ who was at the Taco Bell during the fight, and told him not to tell anyone what happened.

Following the verdicts Thursday, several of Morales’ family members shook Heller’s hand outside the courtroom, hugged him and thanked him. Family members declined to comment, but several were in tears leaving the Ventura courthouse.

At Ostertag’s sentencing hearing in May, Malan will factor in Ostertag’s prior convictions, which include a November 2012 conviction for petty theft and a January 2013 arrest for armed robbery, for which he spent time in a juvenile correctional facility.

In March 2014, Ostertag was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest, and he was arrested again in March 2015 on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

In April 2015, he pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run, and he was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public in August of that year, before the fight at the Taco Bell later that month.

During his closing arguments on Monday, Heller told jurors Ostertag was driven by “anger, embarrassment and ultimately revenge” when he stabbed Morales.

He said Ostertag started the fight in the restaurant’s parking lot then grabbed a knife and continued to attack even when his friends told him to stop.

“The defendant knew exactly what he was doing,” the prosecutor said.

In her closing statement, defense attorney Danielle De Smeth said Morales, Hunt and another friend, Benjamin “Hunter”

Leyva—all teens at the time—had been “out to get” Ostertag after Hunt got angry over Ostertag’s friendship with Hunt’s girlfriend.

“It was three on one,” she said Monday.

But jurors disagreed that Ostertag acted in self-defense.

Jurors also could have returned a verdict of involuntary manslaughter against Ostertag. Involuntary manslaughter involves a homicide committed without intent, malice or planning, usually by accident.

Throughout the four-week trial, Heller and De Smeth repeatedly played for jurors a cellphone video that is the only recording of the actual fight.

Taken by a witness who was having lunch inside the restaurant, the short video captures the final moments of the confrontation; it was analyzed frame by frame by Heller and De Smeth, who provided jurors with conflicting interpretations.

The video shows Ostertag standing in front of Morales, who is directly in front of Hunt. In the background people can be heard screaming, “He’s got a knife!” Morales and Ostertag then trade what look like punches before Ostertag backs away as Morales keeps walking toward him.

“You gonna stick me like that?” the teen is heard saying.

No witnesses ever testified that it was a three-on-one fight, Heller told jurors Monday, and several witnesses said the fight originally was between Ostertag and Hunt.

When Ostertag lost to Hunt “he was embarrassed because he just got beaten up in front of a bunch of high school kids,” Heller said. “He took revenge.”

Ostertag walked back to his car, grabbed a knife and went back to Hunt’s pickup truck, where Morales was sitting, Heller said.

“His intended target was Mr. Hunt, but Daniel Morales stood in front of his friend,” Heller said. “Daniel Morales was a hero that day.”