A Florida man is back in San Diego in hopes of finally seeing justice for his brother, who was killed in a 1994 carjacking near University Heights.<\/p>\n
Thirty-two years years after Karl Senser’s death, prosecutors are once again pursuing a murder case against Leon McInnis after an appeals court revived the prosecution. Dane Senser said the long legal battle has taken a financial, physical and emotional toll, but he remains determined to see the case through.<\/p>\n
“I still get choked up when I think about my brother Karl. I see a photograph of him. We talk about him. It’s still. Yeah, I can feel right now,” Dane Senser said.<\/p>\n
Karl Senser was carjacked and stabbed to death on Mother’s Day, May 8, 1994, near University Heights.<\/p>\n
A man identified as Steven Johnson was originally convicted in 1996. However, new testimony and new evidence later pointed to Leon McInnis, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
McInnis was charged in 2021 with Karl Senser’s murder. The case was dismissed in 2023 after a judge determined too much time had passed and some key witnesses had died. Prosecutors appealed the ruling and won, allowing the case to move forward again.<\/p>\n
“And that’s where we’re at now. We’re starting all over again,” Senser said.<\/p>\n
The latest proceedings include a pretrial evidentiary hearing, where attorneys are arguing over what evidence can be presented if the case goes to trial.<\/p>\n
“It could be two years from now that we finally get to a trial. I don’t know, but I hope sooner rather than later,” Senser said.<\/p>\n
Senser said the years of waiting have left him exhausted.<\/p>\n
“I mean financially, mentally, and physically,” he said.<\/p>\n
He drove from Florida to attend the hearings.<\/p>\n
“Quite honest with you, it’s embarrassing to say, but I’m living in my car,” Senser said. “I got here with $13 left in my pocket.”<\/p>\n
McInnis appeared at the hearing by video conference. A judge ordered NBC San Diego not to show his face.<\/p>\n
Senser said he does not believe families ever truly find closure after losing a loved one to violence.<\/p>\n
“You never get closure. They always say you get closure. There is no closure. It’s always there in your mind. So how can you close it? You still see it in your mind,” he said.<\/p>\n
Instead, Senser said his focus remains on justice for his brother.<\/p>\n
“My real goal here is I want to seek justice for my brother,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dane Senser said Karl Senser was one of eight children. He also acknowledged that some members of his family have given up on the case after more than three decades.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida man is back in San Diego in hopes of finally seeing justice for his brother, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3552,100,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-414663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}