ELYRIA — Daniel Kovarbasich’s murder trial will begin April 5 after the 16-year-old North Ridgeville boy refused to waive his right to a speedy trial on charges he killed a family friend.

“We’re ready,” said Michael Stepanik, Daniel’s attorney.

Murder trials typically take years to wind their way through the legal system, but Stepanik said Daniel is eager to defend against the charges that he killed 55-year-old Duane Hurley on Jan. 22 by stabbing him with a kitchen knife and bludgeoning him with a jar of pickles.

“Self-defense is going to be a component,” he said.

After allegedly killing Hurley, Daniel called his father, Terry Kovarbasich, who picked his son up and looked inside Hurley’s Ronald Drive home. He told police he didn’t check on Hurley but believed he was dead.

The Kovarbasichs then picked up Daniel’s mother and went to the hospital. Daniel later told a nurse that Hurley attacked him with a knife.

“He started to put a knife to my throat. I hit him. Then he was chasing me around the house with the knife,” the nurse wrote in her notes that Daniel told her. “I bumped him a couple of times and got the knife then I stabbed him. He fell down. I stabbed him some more until he wasn’t moving anymore.”

Although Daniel and his brother have denied that Hurley ever touched them sexually, their mother, Donna Kovarbasich, has suggested that Hurley had improper contact with her son.

Stepanik has said Hurley may have made an attempt to touch Daniel, but he declined to discuss the details.

Stepanik said he also has asked Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge to reduce Daniel’s $500,000 bond so his client can be released from the county jail, where he was sent after his case was transferred out of county Juvenile Court. Daniel is being tried as an adult.

Assistant County Prosecutor Dave Muhek said defendants have every right to insist on a speedy trial.

“If they don’t want to waive time, we’ll proceed to trial on the day it’s set,” Muhek said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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