Convicted murderer Antolin Garcia Torres suffered the loss of close family members and might have been exposed to pesticides and harmful toxins in the tap water when he was growing up in impoverished conditions in South County, according to testimony in the Sierra LaMar trial this week. His father was reportedly an alcoholic who often abused his mother in front of the kids, and was frequently absent from the home while the defendant was growing up.
Relatives of Garcia Torres, 26 of Morgan Hill, took the witness stand this week as his attorneys began their quest for a sentence of life in prison in the trial’s penalty phase.
Laura Torres, Antolin’s mother, tearfully professed her unconditional love for her son when asked on the stand May 22 why the jury should decline to give him the death penalty.
“Wherever he goes, I will follow,” Laura Torres cried in Spanish, with a court-appointed translator relaying her testimony in English. “He’s my son. I love him. He has always been good to me.”
She added that if Garcia Torres is sentenced to life in prison, she will try to visit him and talk to him on the phone as often as she can.
Antolin Garcia Torres was convicted May 9 of murdering Sierra LaMar, who was 15 when she disappeared from her mother’s north Morgan Hill home March 16, 2012. Sierra’s remains have not been found, but prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Garcia Torres. The only other sentencing option—to be determined by the same jury that convicted him—is life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Garcia Torres was also convicted of three 2009 attempted kidnappings in the parking lots of two Safeway stores in Morgan Hill.
He was convicted following a three-month trial at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
Laura Torres testified May 22 about the family’s history of tragedy and hardships, which started before she moved to California from Mexico, where her second child died shortly after birth. The family, including Laura’s husband and Antolin’s father Genaro Garcia Fernandez, moved into a shack on a strawberry field in San Martin when they first moved to the states.
She described the dilapidated, cramped conditions of the home, which had no heating or insulation in the walls, and only two mattresses for four people to sleep on. The next house they moved to, also in San Martin, had a leaky roof, and Laura Torres demonstrated how the family stayed dry when it rained by patching the holes with plastic garbage bags.
Both parents picked strawberries for a living while Laura Torres was pregnant with Antolin, and the family was exposed to unknown chemicals sprayed regularly on the crops. Defense attorney Brian Matthews presumed these chemicals to be pesticides.
Matthews also asked Laura Torres if Antolin, his parents and siblings drank, bathed in and cooked with the tap water at the various homes in San Martin and Morgan Hill the children grew up in. The mother said they did.
The family consumed the tap water long before a massive perchlorate plume in the South County groundwater basin, which had been leaching from a Morgan Hill road flares plant for 40 years, was detected in 2003. Antolin was born in 1991. He had four siblings—two older and two younger.
Laura Torres later worked at least two jobs while attending school, while Fernandez was often drunk and in jail. Fernandez was abusive toward Laura Torres when he was drinking, she testified. He hit her multiple times when she was pregnant with Antolin.
She recalled one of these incidents May 22: “I asked him to give me a massage. He started to, but he hit me with a closed fist right here,” she said as she pointed to her chin.
Fernandez even threatened to kill the whole family at one time. He once tried to burn the family vehicle. The mother once fled for several weeks with the children to Napa Valley, to stay with Fernandez’ family.
Fernandez is now in prison on 17 counts of sexual abuse related to his molestation of a female relative while Antolin was growing up.
On another occasion, the husband wrapped Laura Torres’ long braided hair around her neck several times, in an effort to choke her, she testified. The incident terrified her so much that she cut her hair shortly afterwards.
When asked by Matthews if she was afraid for her safety and that of her children, Laura Torres said, “Always.”
Family tragedies
Furthermore, Antolin’s oldest brother Benny—the oldest of Laura Torres’ children—began getting in legal trouble when he was 15, and spent years in jail before he was deported to Mexico.
Antolin had a close relationship with two of his uncles—Laura’s brothers—who died while he was growing up, his mother testified.
Following this succession of tragedies, including Fernandez leaving the family when Antolin was a teenager, “It felt like the family was going to fall apart,” Laura Torres said.
In the face of these hardships, Antolin was always a “loving (and) responsible” son, his mother testified.
Matthews and the defense team are hoping to elicit sympathy for Antolin from the jury by presenting this backdrop of poverty and abuse that characterize his upbringing. During testimony May 22, Matthews displayed several photos of Antolin and the family when he was a child.
Also this week, one of Garcia Torres’ sisters and a family friend testified for the defense, according to news reports.
Questions about deputy’s testimony
On May 24, Judge Vanessa Zecher is expected to hear a motion from the defense to consider the ramifications of the testimony of a sheriff’s deputy who testified against Garcia Torres during the guilt phase of the trial, according to a May 23 report from the San Jose Mercury News.
The same deputy, Sgt. Herman Leon, gave false testimony in a previous case in which the judge later set aside the two defendants’ guilty verdicts, the Mercury News report says.
