Murray man acted in imperfect self-defense when he stabbed woman to death, jury says

Izaak Vijil was convicted of manslaughter after a jury found Thursday he stabbed a woman to death, but he mistakenly believed he was legally justified and was acting in self-defense.

Izaak Vijil was convicted of manslaughter after a jury found Thursday he stabbed a woman to death, but he mistakenly believed he was legally justified and was acting in self-defense. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Izaak Joseph Vijil, 21, was convicted of manslaughter for Melissa Wood's stabbing death.
  • The jury found Vijil acted in imperfect self-defense, reducing the murder charge.
  • Vijil faces a maximum of one to 15 years in prison; sentencing is on Aug. 26.

SALT LAKE CITY — A jury found a Murray man guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter last week, concluding that he thought he was justified in defending himself when he stabbed a woman to death.

Izaak Joseph Vijil, now 21, was 16 on April 22, 2021, when he and others walked toward Melissa Wood, 34, who was with children in an apartment complex parking lot.

Vijil or someone else in the group used the N-word, and Wood told him in a serious tone that he should not use the word in front of children, according to previous testimony in the case. Witnesses walking with Vijil testified that Wood appeared to be drunk and said they believed Vijil was punching Wood and did not know he was using a knife until they saw her bleeding and him running away.

Wood was taken to an emergency room where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy showed she had been stabbed six times.

Vijil was charged as an adult with murder, a first-degree felony, two counts of aggravated assault, a second-degree felony, and committing a violent offense in front of a child, a class B misdemeanor. However, prosecutors dropped several of the charges at the beginning of 2024, and the jury was only tasked with considering the murder charge.

The jury did find him guilty of murder, but also found that prosecutors did not prove Vijil did not believe he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Wood. Under Utah law, this is called "imperfect self-defense," which applies when someone believes they were defending themselves but were not legally justified.

His attorney, Rudy Bautista, told KSL.com the woman approached Vijil and witnesses agreed she was instigating the fight. He said almost all of the witnesses at trial testified that Wood kept moving closer to Vijil while he stayed still and told her to leave him alone. Bautista also said she put her hand behind her back as if she was grabbing a weapon, and that is when Vijil defended himself.

Bautista said witnesses, who were all minorities, agreed the N-word in this situation was not used as a racial slur but as a greeting.

He said Vijil will be filing an appeal contesting the judge's decision to not instruct the jury that actual danger is not required to acquit him based on self-defense, but apparent danger is sufficient. Bautista said the jury should also have been told that Vijil should be judged based on what he knew at the time, not what is known at trial.

An officer testified in the case that Vijil told them when he was arrested that he stabbed the woman in order to protect himself because she was yelling at him, and he didn't know if she had weapons. Vijil was the last witness during his trial, testifying for just under an hour as the only witness called on his behalf.

The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office and an attorney for Wood's family have not yet responded to a request for comment.

The jury decision reduces Vijil's conviction from murder to manslaughter, a second-degree felony, reducing the maximum sentence from 15 years to life in prison to a term of one to 15 years in prison.

Vijil will be sentenced on Aug. 26.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Emily Ashcraft is a reporter for KSL.com. She covers issues in state courts, health and religion. In her spare time, Emily enjoys crafting, cycling and raising chickens.

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