Las Vegan convicted of grade-school pal's murder

      Benjamin Blonde died with $2 and change, a photo of his high-school prom date and two football tickets -- the cheap seats -- in his wallet, prosecutors said.
      This is the score Bill Stone would have netted had his plot to rob his "rich punk" grade-school buddy gone as planned, Deputy District Attorney Chip Siegel told jurors at the close of Stone's murder trial.
      Instead, the 21-year-old Las Vegan shot Blonde twice in the head, then panicked and stole nothing, a jury decided Thursday.
      Stone was convicted of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon for the November death of Blonde, who came to visit him on a three-day pass from a U.S. Air Force base in Northern California where he was stationed.
      Blonde, 20, and Stone grew up in the same small Michigan town and had known each other since second grade, according to Deputy Public Defender Lee McMahon.
      Stone cried on the witness stand as he referred to Blonde as his "friend" and denied killing him.
      "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" Siegel said.
      The state's key witness was Roy Mancha, originally charged with the murder, who pleaded guilty to related crimes. Mancha, 39, said he and Stone planned the robbery but said the shooting was never part of the deal.
      Mancha also admitted giving Stone and his girlfriend a change out of their bloody clothing after the shooting. In exchange for his testimony Mancha will be sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison.
      The girlfriend, 19-year-old Christine Sooley, said she came forward because "this should never have happened."
      Sooley said Stone directed Blonde to drive to a lonely patch of Henderson desert. Then Stone asked to stop the car, pretended he got out to urinate, and instead pulled a gun and shot Blonde at close range, Sooley testified.
      She spent that night with the man she had seen kill, then led police to the murder scene and the body slumped over the seat of the parked car.
      While Mancha clearly had a good reason to testify as he did, Sooley's testimony reflected the haze of methamphetamine all were using at the time of the killing, McMahon said.
      "You've got a script played against a backdrop of confusion, disorganization, self-preservation and drug use," she said.
      The only person without a motive to lie was a family friend who testified Stone was at her house when the killing took place, McMahon continued. "What reason does she have to come here and lie?"
      A penalty hearing will begin May 5 in District Judge Don Chairez's courtroom. At that hearing jurors will be asked to decide if Stone should be sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.