SANTA CLARA COUNTY – The Morgan Hill Police Department has filed murder charges against two suspects who were located just hours after a 9-1-1 call was made to report an unidentified man with multiple stab wounds. The victim died after being taken to a nearby trauma center.
According to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, “On early Sunday morning, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office was advised that the Morgan Hill Police Department was responding to a stabbing in their city.” The victim was found in a field in a rural area near Diana Avenue and Ringel Drive. It was soon discovered the stabbing took place just outside the city limits, placing the case in the hands of the Sheriff’s Department.
That day, Sunday May 31, 20-year-old Spencer Richard Smith was identified as a suspect through the follow up investigation into the stabbing. Though listed as a transient, Smith was arrested at a home on Paquita Espana Court, near the Coyote Creek Golf Club. It was the home of his friend Chase Austin Benoit.
Benoit was later identified as the second suspect in the stabbing murder, and he was arrested three days later at the same home. Evidence found at the scene linked the two suspects to the stabbing. Police believe that an altercation broke out between the suspects and victim, during which time both men began to attack the victim, stabbing him multiple times before fleeing the scene.
Records show that Benoit was arrested in July of 2014 for speeding, making an unsafe turn without signaling, and then evading and failing to obey the officer. At the time he was living at Madrone Mobile Home Estates in Morgan Hill. Smith was arrested in July 2013 for cultivation and possession of a controlled substance. He was arrested a year later on a outstanding warrant for possession of metal knuckles, and then in April of this year for public intoxication and another warrant for a past speeding offense.
