Pair face April jury trial for 2018 killing
A Solano County Superior Court judge scheduled a jury trial in the coming weeks for two men charged with a fatal 2018 shooting in Vallejo.
Daniel Anthony Street, 38, and Costello Blackwell, 49, who on Friday appeared in Department 1 for a trial setting in the case, heard Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman set it to begin at 10 a.m. April 30 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
The judge also scheduled some pretrial matters, including a trial confirmation at 9 a.m. April 11 and a trial management conference at 9 a.m. April 22.
In March 2020 Blackwell, of Vallejo, was convicted and sentenced for trying to kill a potential witness. He received 52 years to life for attempted murder.
He and Street, who each remain in custody at the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield, are accused of the Feb. 10, 2018, slaying of Daryl Huckaby, 47.
Defense attorney Terry Ray represents Street, a former Hercules resident. Defense attorney Sal Giambona represents Blackwell. Deputy District Attorney Bill Ainsworth leads the prosecution.
After the 2020 trial, Blackwell was found guilty for trying to kill Teiquon Cortez, 29 at the time, on Nov. 5, 2018, also in Vallejo.
During the attempted murder trial, Cortez said he witnessed Blackwell, a co-worker at Vallejo moving firm Royal Transport, fire one shot from a handgun, the bullet striking and killing Huckaby, who was in an RV that later crashed on Tuolumne Street.
Months later, on Nov. 1, Blackwell reportedly went to Cortez's living quarters behind the moving company and shot him twice with a shotgun, wounding him.
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Andrew Wood presented more than a dozen witnesses, including Vallejo police investigators, physicians, cellphone tower experts and at least one person who aided Cortez after he was shot.
Cortez testified that he walked across the street to a Shell gas station, where, bleeding profusely from the gun
blasts to his left elbow and back, he received first aid before Vallejo paramedics and police officers arrived.
During court testimony an investigator for the defense, Eugene Borghello, said Cortez told him during a Solano County Jail interview in January 2019 that Blackwell shot him twice with a shotgun for “threatening Mr. Blackwell's wife.”
Cortez also told Borghello, of the Special Investigations Group in Fairfield, that he was in a car with Blackwell when Blackwell shot Huckaby.
After his attempted murder conviction, Blackwell also faced a court trial — during which the judge, not a jury, makes a final decision based on evidence and attorney arguments — on his alleged prior strikes.
Court records indicate Street was in the area when Huckaby was shot and killed.
If convicted at trial for Huckaby's death, Street and Blackwell face 25 years to life in prison on the charge, and likely more time each for prior convictions and enhancements.