VISTA - A Superior Court judge granted a defense request Thursday to postpone to January the murder trial of a man accused ot stabbing a Vista woman about 80 times in her home.

Judge Marguerite Wagner also ordered prosecutors to have law enforcement officials check fingerprints taken from a suitcase filled with DVDs and an Xbox at the scene of the killing to see if they belong to any of the woman's family members or to anyone else in law enforcement databases.

Deputy Public Defender Sloan Ostbye, who represents Derlyn Ray Threats, said in court that she has asked for those fingerprint comparisons to be done because the fingerprints on the suitcase did not match her client's fingerprints.

Threats, 26, faces a possible death sentence if he is convicted of first-degree murder and special allegations in connection with the Sept. 1, 2005, slaying of Carolyn Rebecca Neville-Coe, 24.

Deputies testified in a previous hearing that they were sent to Neville-Coe's neighborhood around 9 a.m. that day on reports of a woman screaming. A deputy testified at that hearing that Threats was seen running from the woman's home, had a stun gun and a bloodied wooden stump of a hammer stuffed in the legs of his pants, and wore socks that were "stained with blood."

Ostbye said at that hearing the Threats maintains he is innocent.