San Diego Man Sentenced to Life for Fatally Stabbing Boyfriend

A San Diego man who killed his boyfriend by stabbing him 93 times was sentenced today to life in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.

Alexander Yoichi Duberek, 25, was indicted in September 2021. He pleaded guilty in July 2022 to one count of interstate domestic violence resulting in death and was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix.

“This defendant looked his boyfriend’s family in the eyes and described the date night he had planned for the two of them. But instead of providing a romantic evening, he carried out a sadistic, premeditated plan to take the life of a 30-year-old man and callously dispose of his body,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton. “I cannot imagine the horror for this victim and his family. We are proud to bring this killer to justice.”

According to plea papers, Mr. Duberek admitted that on Oct. 31, 2020, he traveled from his home in San Diego to his boyfriend’s home in Plainview, Texas, where he committed the fatal stabbing on the side of a rural farm road.

Mr. Duberek admitted that after arriving at the Lubbock airport that evening, he took a cab to a Sam’s Club parking lot, where he purchased a Toyota Camry for $3,000 cash. He then drove to a Walmart, where he purchased a knife, a hatchet, a gas can, a collapsible shovel, a head lamp, a change of clothing, boots, personal hygiene items, and a first aid kit.

At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors said that when Mr. Duberek arrived at his boyfriend’s house, he told his boyfriend’s family that he planned to take him out to eat and then to a local hotel room to spend the night.

Instead, he killed the 30-year-old and dumped the body.  

Following the murder, Mr. Duberek fled to Houston, where he sold the vehicle used in the murder to an individual outside an auto auction. Investigators later searched the vehicle and found blood in the back seat that matched the victim.

The defendant remained at large for roughly five months before turning himself in to San Diego law enforcement on March 18, 2021. While being booked into jail, he was asked about a tattoo of his boyfriend’s first name on his ring finger; he answered that it was the name of the person he had killed.

“After viciously attacking him, the defendant left this wonderful human life, who he reportedly loved and wanted to marry, on the side of the road, like yesterday’s trash, like his life didn’t matter, to bleed to death,” the victim’s aunt said at the sentencing. “Why would he extinguish a light that shone so brightly for so many? Why didn’t he just stay in California, move on with his life?”

The Hale County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Rangers, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Dallas and San Diego Field Offices conducted the investigation with the assistance of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dallas Field Office and the Texas Highway Patrol’s Houston Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Callie Woolam prosecuted the case.