In the second day of the Sierra LaMar murder trial, the attorney for accused killer Antolin Garcia Torres attempted to sow doubt within the jury by attacking the most essential facets of the case presented by police and the prosecutor.
“You are not going to hear any evidence that (Sierra) was killed, absolutely none,” defense attorney Al Lopez told the jury Jan. 31.
The claim was a stark contrast from that of Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd, who started his opening statement less than 24 hours earlier by saying, “Sierra LaMar is dead, and this man killed her,” as he pointed to Garcia Torres seated at the defense table in the crowded courtroom.
Lopez continued his opening statement by attempting to pick apart various other arguments Boyd presented before him at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. He implored the jury to “keep an open mind throughout this whole process. You haven’t heard the evidence yet.”
Garcia Torres, 25 of Morgan Hill, is accused of kidnapping and killing Sierra March 16, 2012, the last day the 15-year-old Sobrato High School sophomore was seen alive. Her remains have not been found.
He is also accused of three unrelated attempted kidnappings in 2009, when he allegedly attacked three women in the parking lots of two local Safeway stores.
Lopez told the jury none of the state’s evidence proves Garcia Torres was involved in those 2009 crimes. There is even an “innocent explanation” for the defendant’s thumbprint on the battery of a stun gun used in at least one of the attacks, found by crime lab experts during the police investigation.
Employed as a “courtesy clerk” at Safeway in 2009, one of Garcia Torres’ responsibilities was to perform “go-backs,” Lopez explained. This entailed placing items back on the shelves that customers returned or decided not to purchase after all before closing out their purchase.
The packaging on Duracell nine-volt batteries, such as the one found in the stun gun recovered from the parking lot crime, tends to “bust open on a regular basis” just from incidental handling. When this happened in the store, it was Garcia Torres’ job to place the batteries back inside the packaging, tape them up and place the item back on the shelf.
“That’s why Mr. Garcia Torres’ thumbprint would be on that battery,” Lopez said. He added that Safeway employees would testify about this later in the trial.
Lopez added that none of the three female victims in the Safeway incidents could pick Garcia Torres out of a photo lineup, and the attacks appeared to be run-of-the-mill robberies rather than kidnapping attempts as the prosecution claimed.
On Jan. 30, Boyd said the 2009 Safeway victims didn’t see a photo lineup until after Garcia Torres was arrested on suspicion of killing Sierra in 2012, but they all gave similar verbal descriptions of the suspect hours after their respective incidents. Boyd added Jan. 31, finishing up his opening statement before Lopez started, that “nothing was said, nothing was taken” from the women, indicating the attacker was not interested in robbing them.
Lopez then went into a lengthy refutation of the DNA evidence that allegedly ties Garcia Torres to Sierra in the hours after she disappeared—a lynchpin of the DA’s case.
Lopez said the prosecutor’s case relies on “background DNA” found on Sierra’s discarded belongings and in Garcia Torres’ red Volkswagen Jetta. This DNA was found in such small amounts that it could have been transferred to the incriminating locations by a third or fourth party, and there is no way to determine, with certainty, how or when it appeared there.
DNA, Lopez told the jury, can be left in a location simply with the touch of a hand, and can stay there for years. “This case is not the ‘gold standard’ DNA,” Lopez said. “It’s called ‘contact DNA’…It’s too sensitive. You’re picking up everybody’s DNA who touched it…And you get mixtures from many people in that sample. There is no way of knowing how many people touched it.”
Boyd told the jury earlier that a DNA analysis of Sierra’s jeans, which were found discarded in her bag along with the rest of the clothing she was wearing the day she disappeared, showed a strong likelihood of Garcia Torres’ DNA on the pants. He added that a rope found in the trunk of the defendant’s car had a hair that matched Sierra’s DNA, and a glove—also found by investigators in the trunk—held the teen’s genetic material.
But Lopez said investigators did not follow “DNA protocol” when processing the items from Sierra’s bag, which they found off the side of the road near Laguna Avenue a couple days after she disappeared. He showed photos of the items placed on a “dirty” corkboard by detectives before being sent to the contamination-controlled crime lab.
“The government has big problems in this case with transfer” of DNA and potential evidence contamination, Lopez said.
Plus, photos of the rope do not show any hair on it, despite Boyd’s claim that more than 50 such fibers were found on the item. “The rope was in evidence for four months before they found that hair,” Lopez said.
Garcia Torres’ attorney also questioned the relationship between the defendant and hundreds of microscopic glass beads found in Sierra’s discarded clothing. Boyd said these beads are the kind found in roadway paint, used to make the surface more reflective. He suggested this evidence shows Garcia Torres dragged Sierra or her body across a road surface some time after he kidnapped her.
But Lopez said these beads were found only on Sierra’s clothing, and nowhere in Garcia Torres’ car or on his belongings. Furthermore, he said a defense witness will testify that there are no drag marks on Sierra’s belongings that contained the beads.
Finishing up his opening statement the morning of Jan. 31, Boyd said Garcia Torres and Sierra met “for the first and last time” the morning the teen disappeared, despite the defendant’s claims to police that he had never met her.
Sierra vanished as she walked from her north Morgan Hill home to her school bus stop near the intersection of Palm and Dougherty avenues.
Garcia Torres “learned” from the foiled Safeway attacks to pick a younger, smaller victim, “immersed in her own life, with her headphones in her ears as she walks toward her bus,” Boyd said.
The trial for Garcia Torres is expected to last up to five months at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. If convicted, he faces a possible sentence of death or life in prison.
