OGDEN -- Riqo Perea's lawyers unveiled their wrong-guy defense Monday, suggesting another gunman, possibly two, could be blamed, as Perea's double-homicide trial enters the stretch run.
The case could go to the jury as soon as this morning. The prosecution rested just before noon Monday.
Which is when Perea's lead public defender, Randy Richards, moved the case be dismissed. "There are no prints, no gunpowder residue, no CSI evidence that ties him to anyone," Richards argued in a preview of today's closing arguments.
Only one eyewitness of any credibility puts the gun in Perea's hand, Richards told 2nd District Judge Ernie Jones.
But Deputy Weber County Attorney Chris Shaw said the question of the credibility of a witness is for a jury to decide, and three named Perea as the shooter. A fourth said the shots came from someone sitting on the passenger-side window jamb firing over the top of a passing SUV.
The descriptions match Perea's own statements to police, which were debated all of Monday morning, with the defense questioning every detail of the confession elicited by Ogden police detectives Jim Gent and John Thomas. Jones last July denied a motion to suppress that claimed Miranda violations in Perea's admissions to police.
Jones on Monday denied Richards' in-court dismissal motion, saying, "Clearly there is enough evidence for this case to go to the jury."
Perea, 22, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of attempted murder, for which he faces maximum penalties, respectively of life in prison and five years to life. Sabrina Prieto, 22, and Resendo Nava Nevarez, 29, were killed in the Aug. 5, 2007, shooting at a wedding party. Two others were woundwed.
Retired veteran forensic scientist Jim Gaskill, who still teaches classes at Weber State University, took the stand in the afternoon to say he had testified in 2,250 cases in a career that continues as a consultant. He noted most of the crime-scene analysts testifying for the prosecution were once his students.
The lawyers spent much time sparring over the 10 spent bullet casings found on the shoulder of the road just in front of and west of the front lawn where the victims were shot.
Gaskill and the prosecution's expert agreed the casings, or cartridges, came from the same .22-caliber hwandgun. But Gaskill said the way the cartridges were grouped, spread in a 15-foot-wide swath, didn't jibe with prosecution witnesses' depiction of the shooting.
With Perea allegedly firing over the top of a slowly moving SUV, the cartridges should have been strewn along a 30- or 40-foot-long path, Gaskill indicated.
He also said a truck parked in front of the yard where the victims were hit would have blocked a bullet's path to at least two, possibly three of the four victims.
And he said a car in the driveway of the crime scene had a bullet hole in the rear passenger side that likely came from a shot fired inside the car, because the bullet hole was "cratered" outward.
The foregoing all fed Gaskill's theory that two gunmen were involved, and neither one was Perea, as the shots fired from where the cartridges lay were fired by a stationary person.
But Shaw, in an onslaught of cross-examination of Gaskill, noted two witnesses were next to the car with the bullet hole in the rear window during the gunplay who said no one else was in or near the car.
He also had Gaskill admit he had no idea of the dimensions of the truck he felt could have obscured the shooting, having taken no measurements.
At one point he appeared confused under Shaw's questioning suggesting the pickup could have been 20 feet long. "You don't know the height of the truck either, do you?" Shaw asked rhetorically.
To conclude his cross-examination, Shaw brought up Gaskill's 1994 resignation as head of the Weber State University crime lab, which he founded in 1972. The lab came under some controversy then, including a Utah Attorney General's Office investigation, which brought no charges over some inappropriate behavior by a forensic specialist.
Gaskill also admitted he misidentified a fingerprint of the suspect in a major murder case at the time. Under follow-up testimony by Richards and no rebuttal by Shaw, Gaskill noted the attorney general's investigation found no fault with him.
"Since then you have continued to testify for prosecutors?" Richards asked.
"Yes, quite a few times." Gaskill said.
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