Ten-year-old Shiloh Edsitty had a knife lodged in his chest when he ran out of his apartment yelling for help three years ago.

The attacker, 32-year-old James Valdez, chased the wounded child through a northeast Las Vegas apartment complex, where Valdez, Edsitty and Edsitty's mother, Teresa Tilden, lived, a prosecutor said.

"He (Valdez) stabbed him (Edsitty) so hard, the handle broke off," said prosecutor Bill Kephart on Monday, as he described the 2004 slaying of Tilden and the attack on her son during the opening statements of Valdez's trial.

"He (Edsitty) ran from the defendant screaming, 'Help me, I'm bleeding,' " Kephart said.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Valdez faces a potential death sentence in the killing of 31-year-old Tilden and subsequent attack on Edsitty and the security guard who tried to protect the boy.

Kephart said that during the chase, Edsitty fell in the apartment complex parking lot. When Valdez caught up with the boy, he stabbed him again before security guard Kendall Waithe intervened.

Valdez then chased Waithe with the knife before running out of the apartment complex.

Defense attorneys Michael Cristalli and Marc Saggese said their client should be spared the death penalty since there was no premeditation or deliberation in his acts. Cristalli said two medical experts will be called to testify that Valdez has frontal lobe damage that leaves him prone to making spontaneous decisions.

Saggese emphasized during his opening statement that on the night of Nov. 8, 2004, Tilden had prevented Valdez from leaving during an argument. It was Tilden, Saggese said, who brought the knife into the fight.

Both Valdez and Tilden were intoxicated that night, but Saggese said that Tilden was almost three times over the legal driving limit with a 0.23 blood alcohol content.

When Valdez got the knife away from Tilden, Saggese said, Tilden told her son to get a knife and stab Valdez. Saggese then showed jurors a photo of a knife wound on Valdez's hand taken after the murder, which the attorney said was inflicted by the boy.

Edsitty, who is now 14, moved to New York with his foster mother, Vivian Powell, in December 2004. He will testify via a video deposition..