Teenager pleads not guilty to park slaying

The teenager charged with fatally stabbing a 19-year-old man at a Huntington Beach park pleaded not guilty last week.

Jesse Shockey, 16, of Garden Grove is scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 2 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

He is charged with one felony count of murder and a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in state prison.

Shockey is accused of getting into an argument in Lark View Park with the friends of Dylan James Austin about two weeks before the Dec. 21 killing, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

He allegedly returned to the park with his friends, armed with a knife, and got into a physical fight with Austin before stabbing him once in the chest.

Austin, a Huntington Beach resident, was pronounced dead shortly afterward at UCI Medical Center.

—Michael Miller

Twitter: @MichaelMillerHB