Crime & Safety

Man Who Stabbed Mom's Boyfriend in Spring Valley Pleads Guilty

Thomas Dwayne Guss III, 25, will be sentenced on May 6.

A man who stabbed his mother's boyfriend during a fight at the victim's Spring Valley home pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter.

Thomas Dwayne Guss III, 25, will be sentenced on May 6 to a dozen years in state prison.

Deputies responding to a report of a domestic disturbance in the 8600 block of Taylor Street in Spring Valley found the mortally wounded victim shortly before 10 p.m. last April 16.

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Paramedics took 40-year-old Irvin Harris Jr. to Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, where he died a short time later. Guss fled before deputies arrived but was arrested near the scene the next morning, according to San Diego County sheriff's homicide Lt. Glenn Giannantonio.

Deputy District Attorney Cally Bright said earlier that Guss told authorities he remembered most of what happened that night, except the point where Harris was stabbed. Bright said the victim suffered two stab wounds, one in the heart and one in the liver.

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The reason for the dispute between the two men remains unclear.

—City News Service


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