A Germantown man was convicted of first-degree murder Tuesday after a week-long trial in Montgomery County that showed he stabbed the victim 13 times, according to prosecutors.
“When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she saw” a man, later identified as Wilson, armed with a knife and struggling with her father, investigators wrote in court records. She returned to her room and called 911, police said.
In addition to stabbing Ienzi, Wilson also cut him six times, according to prosecutors. Wilson fled. Ienzi was taken to a hospital where he died.
Adam Harris, an attorney for Wilson, said that neither he nor his client denied Wilson killed Ienzi, but they instead contested the particular charge. Wilson testified that Ienzi attacked him and that he reacted in a rage, not because he planned to murder Ienzi, according to Harris. Under the concept in Maryland law of “hotblooded response to legally adequate provocation,” Harris said, what Wilson did should have been deemed manslaughter.
“It wasn’t a premeditated, coldblooded murder,” Harris said. “It was a hotblooded response.”