Tylor Crippen's girlfriend offers gripping testimony about Modesto park stabbing

A young woman on Wednesday provided emotional testimony, describing for a jury how her boyfriend was chased into an east Modesto park and stabbed to death.

Brittany Waldo told the jurors she was frantically seeking help when she heard her boyfriend, Tylor Crippen. “I hear Tylor screaming (in pain),” Waldo said as she cried on the witness stand. “I hear him say my name.”

Crippen and his girlfriend were just outside Creekwood Park when they were accosted by three males, who then chased the 18-year-old man into the park.

Taylor Koplen, Jacob Segura and Juan Garcia are on trial, accused of murder in Crippen’s stabbing. The defendants also face charges of robbery and two counts of attempted robbery, along with enhancements of committing crimes for the benefit of the Norteño street gang.

Before they encountered the young couple, prosecutors say, the defendants stole a knife from another man during a confrontation at the same park. The stolen knife was used several minutes later in the attack on Crippen, according to prosecutors.

The deadly stabbing occurred on the night of Jan. 29, 2013. Waldo and her boyfriend had watched a movie and played video games at his home before they went out for an evening stroll.

When asked to describe her boyfriend, Waldo said in court that he was short and skinny, and “He was really quiet and really shy.”

She said her boyfriend wanted to clear his mind, so they walked to nearby Creekwood Park, a few blocks west of Claus Road.

They spotted an intoxicated woman at the park and one man holding her up, she said. Waldo testified that the man had long hair in a ponytail, and his hair appeared curlier toward the end of the tail. Other people were sitting near them at a park bench.

Waldo said she was scared and grabbed her boyfriend’s hand tightly as the couple continued to walk east on Mechalys Way. “He told me that I’d be OK, that he was there,” she said while fighting back tears.

The couple walked around the southeast corner of the park to the bus stop near Ardia Avenue and Creekwood Drive. There, they talked, held hands and kissed for about 15 minutes, she said, before three males approached them. The trio had walked out from the park.

The same long-haired man Waldo saw holding up the woman was one of the three, and he asked the couple if they had any cigarettes, she said. The couple said no, that they didn’t smoke. Then, the long-haired man punched Crippen in his back, his girlfriend testified.

She said she couldn’t see whether the man had anything in his hand when he punched Crippen. Waldo told the jury that her boyfriend ran into the street in a zigzag motion to get away from his attacker, then the other two males started chasing her boyfriend.

Waldo said the long-haired man stayed with her and brandished a knife, demanding her belongings. “I told him, ‘I don’t have anything,’ ” she said. She pulled out her pockets and lifted her shirt to show the robber that she had nothing for him to steal.

Waldo testified that the knife-wielding man had an extremely aggressive and hateful look on his face as he demanded her belongings. “I was scared. I thought he was going to hurt me, possibly kill me,” she told the jury.

Crippen ran west along Ardia Avenue, yelling at the trio to leave his girlfriend alone as she stood near the bus stop and was held at knifepoint, she said. Crippen tried to escape into the park, but they continued to chase him.

Waldo testified that she heard one of the two people chasing her boyfriend yell out that they were going to cut off his genitals. The knife-wielding man told Waldo to stay near the bus stop shortly before he joined the chase into the park.

She said she stood in the street in front of a silver car, trying to get the driver to help her and her boyfriend, but the driver just drove around her. Waldo then went to the nearby homes along Ardia Avenue, but nobody answered her cries for help.

At the third home she went to, she saw lights on and started banging on the front door. “I started pounding on it with both my fists,” Waldo said in court.

Then the three males came out of the park. Waldo said one of them yelled at her to get back inside the house and raised his shirt to show what appeared to be the handle of a gun tucked in his waistband.

“I got on my knees, closed my eyes and said, ‘Please, don’t hurt me,’ ” Waldo told the jurors. At that moment, someone opened the front door of the home. She went inside, and the resident called 911.

The jury listened to a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, following along with a transcript of the recording.

“Please, get someone to help me,” Waldo told the 911 dispatcher. “I think they stabbed him; I heard him screaming.”

She said she later went outside and could see an ambulance where her boyfriend was on the ground. Waldo said she called out his name, hoping he would move as he was being loaded into the ambulance.

During cross-examination by Segura’s attorney, Waldo said she told investigators in two police interviews that the man who punched her boyfriend and brandished the knife had long hair.

Koplen had long hair when he was taken into custody not long after the fatal stabbing. Authorities believe he stabbed Crippen.

During cross-examination by Koplen’s attorney, Waldo said she told investigators that the knife-wielding man had a red plaid shirt. She testified Wednesday that the armed man was possibly wearing a red plaid shirt.

Shortly after the stabbing, Segura was taken into custody wearing a red plaid shirt.

Sheltri Gresham, a DNA analyst at the state Department of Justice forensics lab in Ripon, testified that bloodstains found on Segura’s red plaid shirt did not match a sample of Crippen’s blood.

This story was originally published October 15, 2014 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Tylor Crippen's girlfriend offers gripping testimony about Modesto park stabbing."