In a murderous month in San Jose, Lowell Noble is perhaps the most surprising victim of all: The 82-year-old man died Jan. 7, authorities say, because of a savage beating that occurred almost 12 years ago.

His attacker has been locked up for years, but on Wednesday, after an unusual ruling by the coroner, San Jose police reopened the case as a homicide.

Noble was suffering from heart problems and diabetes when he died. While he needed a walker to get around, he enjoyed bridge and Reader's Digest in his final years.

However, despite his advanced age and health problems, the most significant factor in Noble's death was trauma to his head -- the traumatic brain injury he suffered on May 15, 1999, in a San Jose house, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner.

More specifically, Noble suffered aspiration pneumonia because of dysphagia -- a swallowing problem. And that swallowing problem, the death certificate reads, was a direct result of his brain injury.

Prosecutors say it's too soon to tell whether they'll recharge the attacker with murder or manslaughter. That man, Walter Jones, 49, is now serving a 16-year attempted murder sentence for savagely beating Noble and Jones' mother, Linda, whom Noble was dating at the time.
Dr. Michelle Jorden, who signed Noble's death certificate, declined to speak about the case, saying it is against department policy to comment on open homicide investigations.
But Santa Clara County Sheriff Capt. Kevin Jensen, who oversees the coroner's office, said: "In general, the concept of delayed fatals is this: If the event caused an injury, and that injury was the largest contributing factor in the death, then it can be ruled a homicide."

Noble 'never the same'

Family members say that although Noble survived the 1999 attack, he never fully recovered.

"Dad was never the same," his oldest daughter, Mellissa Noble Asmussen, said after his funeral service this week.

He suffered short-term memory loss and was never able to live on his own again after the attack.
Deputy District Attorney Brian Welch said he needs to review the entire case again before deciding whether to recharge Jones. Jones was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and elder abuse. The other person Jones harmed that night was his mother, who lived in Campbell. Attempts to contact Linda Jones were unsuccessful.

Welch did say it would be an uphill battle to obtain a murder conviction. California law presumes that if a victim dies more than three years after an assault, then it is not a result of the crime, but allows arguments to the contrary to be made in court.

"Delayed fatals" happen regularly enough, but the gap between incident and death is usually much closer. In addition to Noble, San Jose had another one this year. Salvador Pena, a 56-year-old music and jewelry store owner in Alum Rock, was stabbed on Dec. 15 and died Jan. 8 as a result of those wounds.

San Jose police list Pena and Noble as 2011 homicide victims, bumping the number to nine -- a high figure in a city that had 20 homicides all of last year.

Delayed fatals that take years, however, are rarer. In one highly unusual case in 2009, a coroner in Virginia ruled a Navy veteran died as the result of a 1976 shooting that left him a quadriplegic. Prosecutors couldn't file charges in that case because Virginia law prevents murder prosecutions if the victim dies more than one year and one day after the fatal wound was inflicted.
Santa Clara University Law Professor Gerald Uelmen, a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team, said if Jones is charged with murder, "the case would likely come down to be a battle of the experts.

"Clearly, the longer the time lapses, the more difficult it will be," Uelmen said.
But the gory details and legal challenges of Noble's delayed death were not what his two remaining daughters and others chose to remember at his funeral service Tuesday afternoon.

Happier memories

The service was celebrated by a small group, including an old college pal who also attended the University of Oregon, where Noble received bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry. Noble had 17 patents under his name stemming from the 1950s. Among his inventions were 3-D viewing glasses and electron tube sockets, according to his family He ran his own company, QD Technology, in Los Gatos until he was injured in the attack, his family said. 

"Lowell was brilliant," Noble Pearson said in her eulogy.

But Noble Asmussen, 55, of San Jose, said her dad never bounced back after the brutal beating, in which she said Jones punched and kicked her father in the head with his boots: "The doctors said Dad would have been a vegetable if he hadn't been so intelligent."

Still to this day, she doesn't know what set off Jones.

After the attack, Noble was forced to close his business and move in with his middle daughter, Melenie Noble Pearson, and her husband.

Noble's wife, Robyn, died in 1984 of leukemia, and his youngest daughter, Melynda, died in 1996, when she was 32 years old.

The Noble family was surprised to learn that the coroner ruled their dad's death a homicide. And now, Noble Asmussen said she is "torn" about wanting her dad's attacker to be charged with another crime.

"I guess I feel like, yeah, Dad died that day, and now, it's just like we lost his shell," Noble Asmussen said. "But on the other hand, it's been so long. Maybe we just need to let things go."