Prosecutor Says Big Knife Proves Intent Prosecutor: ‘Designed To Kill’

Evidence of premeditated murder? Intent to kill?

Look no further than the terrifying “Rambo” knife slung across Todd Neighbors’ back, the prosecutor said.

Neighbors admits using the assault weapon to kill 15-year-old Eric Amodio in Riverfront Park last August.

It’s a knife “designed to kill” with a 16-inch blade and a special groove in the metal to drain the blood of its victims, according to Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll.

“You stick a knife like that into someone, you’re intending to kill him,” Driscoll said in his closing argument Tuesday.

Driscoll asked the Superior Court jury to convict Neighbors of first-degree murder in the Aug. 23 killing.

Amodio was stabbed, slashed and bludgeoned to death.

“He died horribly,” Driscoll said.

Defense attorney James Sheehan called the knife a “piece of junk” that turned what should have been an ordinary fist fight into a “slaughter, a frenzy, a craziness.”

But Sheehan spent nearly an hour pacing before the jury box, urging the panel to reject the prosecution’s claims of premeditation.

“There’s not even one iota of premeditation in this case. There’s no intent to kill,” he said.

Neighbors and his friend, Billy Woodard, were “incredibly drunk” during their 2 a.m. clash with a pack of four teenage boys on bicycles, Sheehan said.

The three surviving teens said they rode their bikes to the park because they were bored and seeking excitement.

They taunted and harassed Woodard and Neighbors, circling them like sharks, the defense lawyer said.

In his testimony Monday, Neighbors said he felt threatened by the boys, particularly Amodio, who allegedly stopped and shoved the front end of his bike at him.

Neighbors, a 24-year-old Spokane shipping clerk, said he pushed Amodio to the ground.

Seconds later, the teenager “came at me swinging,” Neighbors said.

“What did you do, Todd?” Sheehan asked.

“I was trying to defend myself.

”Neighbors said he is taking responsibility for the stabbing even though he can’t remember doing it and has a vague memory of Woodard, 43, inflicting some of the blows.

Police accepted Woodard’s denial of any involvement in Amodio’s death.

Driscoll said the killing boils down to the knife - and a tragic mistake.

He said Neighbors mistook Amodio for someone who provided authorities with information leading to Neighbors’ February 1993 arrest on drug charges.

“The defendant was carrying through on a prior threat to kill the person who snitched him off,” Driscoll argued Tuesday.

But Amodio wasn’t the informer and had never met Neighbors.

Woodard and Neighbors spent the night before the killing drinking heavily in nine different bars.

They were heading home through the park when they encountered Amodio and his friends.

Neighbors testified he collects knives, some with even longer blades than the one made famous by Sylvester Stallone in “Rambo III.

”The jury began deliberating late Tuesday afternoon and was set to resume its task this morning.

The sentencing range for first-degree murder is 20 to 26 years in prison.