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# Santa Monica man on trial for 2001 murder
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-man-on-trial-for-2001-murder/
- Published: 2004-01-28T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:41:14.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Downtown, #archive-import

*Prosecution makes case against accused cabbie killer*

*By MICHAEL TITTINGER Daily Press Staff Writer* sub: Prosecution makes case against accused cabbie killer

By MICHAEL TITTINGER

Daily Press Staff Writer

DOWNTOWN LA — The calculating mind of a killer, who laid in wait to ambush his unsuspecting victim, increasingly came into focus Tuesday as details of the murder a Santa Monica man is accused of committing were graphically displayed.

The murder trial of Antonio Barba began Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, with the prosecution and defense beginning to lay the groundwork for their cases by offering a pair of matter-of-fact opening statements to a 13-member jury. The 24-year-old is accused of fatally stabbing and robbing Los Angeles cab driver Keum Kim in July of 2001.

“Antonio Barba took a knife from his mother’s house, called for a cab, and then called right back to see if he had enough money,” Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Kendra Carmen told jurors. “He was the one on Brooks Avenue that night. He was the one who plunged a knife into the victim over 32 times. He was the one who took Keum Kim’s money. He was the one who fled into the alley.

2D8,“He was the one who committed first-degree, premeditated murder.”

The evidence compiled by police during the investigation includes the butcher knife murder weapon and a blue hooded sweatshirt covered with Kim’s blood. Both items were retrieved in an alley behind the 800 block of Brooks Avenue in the Oakwood section of Venice, where the murder took place.

An eyewitness testified Tuesday to seeing the alleged murderer flee from Kim’s cab on foot into the alley, while wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt. The recovered sweatshirt was subsequently found to have between 12 and 14 hairs matching the DNA of Barba, according to Carmen, who qualified the odds of another culprit having the same DNA as approximately 1 in 6 million.

“Mr. Barba didn’t do it,” he began, looking intently into the faces of the jury. “There is no evidence other than innuendo and rumor and an unreliable anonymous caller.”

According to the prosecution, an anonymous call placed to LAPD Det. Paul Inabu, who arrested Barba close to a month after the murder, helped lead to his capture.

“There were a lot of resources spent in this case,” Fisher said. “The cab was sent to the fingerprint shed and dusted thoroughly, but nothing came back matching Mr. Barba. There were cigarettes in the passenger ashtray, hair on the passenger headers... You would expect something to match the DNA of the person who did this.”

Barba’s DNA was conspicuously absent from Kim’s cab. Fisher also pointed out that investigators came up empty after serving a search warrant at the Barba home on the 1800 block of 16th Street in Santa Monica. Police seized clothing, eight or nine pairs of shorts and a couple pairs of shoes, but they found no traces of Kim’s blood.

However, according to Carmen, when the search was conducted on Aug. 2, 2001, “two things became very clear — Mr. Barba was living two blocks from where the suspect was first picked up by (Kim’s cab). Also, the defendant’s mother, when asked if she had a similar knife to the murder weapon, indicated that she did and that the knife was missing.”

The prosecution visually laid out the viciousness of the crime committed in the early morning hours of July, 8, 2001, during the proceedings at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. Perhaps even more emotionally potent than a series of autopsy photos, was a simple gray mannequin which lay dormant in the back of the courtroom. Each of the more than 30 red pins stuck into the mannequin’s head, neck and chest represented the spot on Kim’s body where he was stabbed in rapid succession.

The prosecution’s case is centered on the belief that Barba, then 21 years old, called a cab for the specific purpose of killing and robbing the driver. Carmen’s first witness to take the stand Tuesday was Linda Deskin, a cab driver who was working as dispatcher for the AAA Cab Company on the night Kim was attacked. Deskin sent the Koreatown resident to the pick-up location.

Deskin remarked that the caller, who called himself “Sergio,” did not leave a call-back number as per the company’s policy.

“Then, he called back almost immediately,” she recounted. “He asked if the driver had change for a $50\. I told him to go to the grocery store if he needed change. I would never tell a caller how much money a driver had.”

Upon cross-examination, Fisher got Deskin to admit that she told investigators the voice sounded like someone of African-American ethnicity. Barba is Hispanic.

“I stopped my car behind a taxi and thought someone would be getting out,” Ramirez said. “I saw a commotion in the car and thought the driver was getting robbed. Then I went back and saw someone get out. He was hiding in the bushes.”

Ramirez recalled seeing the suspect run into the alley behind the apartments, before noticing Kim had emerged from his halted cab with “blood all over him.”

“He was stammering, and he just kind of opened his mouth,” Ramirez said. “But I didn’t hear anything.”

The witness said that the 59-year-old Kim staggered past his car toward Lincoln Boulevard, a block away, before Ramirez went home and called 9-1-1.

Fisher took issue with Ramirez’s description of the killer on cross-examination, remarking that the witness told police the suspect was 5’10’’. Barba stands 5’4”.

Fisher, during his opening statement, implored the jurors to keep an open mind until all the evidence was heard. The public defender seemed confident of his case, repeatedly remarking that the prosecution “had a weak case” and that the lion’s share of their evidence was purely circumstantial.

Barba has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and one count of armed robbery.

The trial is expected to last throughout the week. Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry, who is overseeing his 169th murder trial, had expressed hope that the jury could begin deliberating by Thursday.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 28, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/012804.pdf?ref=smdp.com)