Murder trial begins for Desert Aire man accused of killing Yakima woman

EPHRATA — A Grant County jury heard opening statements Friday afternoon in the case of a Grant County man who is accused of killing a Yakima woman in 2012.

Jose Aguilar Aguilar, 38, of Desert Aire, is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, second-degree assault, alien in possession of a firearm and intimidating a witness.

Aguilar Aguilar was taken into custody on Oct. 29, 2012 at a laundromat in Mattawa after the body of a woman with whom he was having a relationship, Carmelita Lopez Santos, 42, of Yakima, was discovered by a hunter near the Buckshot Wildlife Access Area on Oct. 16. Investigators reportedly located four 9mm shell casings and a bullet jacket near Lopez Santos’ body.

Grant County Prosecuting Attorney Garth Dano explained to the jury that when Aguilar Aguilar was taken into custody Lopez Santos’ cellphone was located in his vehicle. He stated that 13 phone call were made from Lopez Santos’ phone to members of her family between Oct. 16-28, 13 calls were made to her co-worker between Oct. 16-28, and four calls were made to her fiancé between Oct. 16-19. The individual who made the phone calls, alleged to be Aguilar Aguilar, reportedly told some of the people he called that he didn’t know who Lopez Santos was and claimed he found the phone in a Walmart parking lot.

Aguilar Aguilar’s attorney, David Bustamante, stated the individual who placed the calls spoke with a “very distinctive regional accent.” He said evidence indicates that after Aguilar Aguilar was arrested police employed a “highly suggestive method of voice identification.” He said police called members of Lopez Santos’ family while Aguilar Aguilar was in the room and told a member of her family they thought they had a suspect in the murder of Lopez Santos and wanted them to listen to the person and determine if the suspect was the one who had placed the phone calls.

“They (Lopez Santos’ family members) all said ‘oh that’s him for sure.’ What the police did not do was employ any type of lineup, a voice lineup consisting of several individuals having the same regional accent,” Bustamante told the jury. “Instead, the family members only heard the one voice and based their identification completely on the one voice that they were provided. Mr. Aguilar has flatly denied that he was the person making those calls.”

Bustamante pointed out Lopez Santos’ cellphone was indeed found in the vehicle Aguilar Aguilar was driving the day he arrested, but he stated the vehicle was not registered in Aguilar Aguilar’s name and his roommates had the ability to use it. In addition, he said laboratory tests on the phone did not turn up evidence of Aguilar Aguilar’s fingerprints or DNA on the phone.

Dano said upon searching Aguilar Aguilar’s residence police located a 9mm Smith and Wesson and items belonging to the defendant in a room he was sharing with another man. Police reportedly found cowboy boots and a black purse, both of which had blood stains, in a detached garage at the residence. Dano said the blood stains found on the purse, which contained items indicating the purse belonged to Lopez Santos, and boots contained DNA that came back as a match to Lopez Santos.

Police also reportedly found a garbage bag containing a pair of pants and a shirt with blood stains.

“The reason that is important, ladies and gentlemen, is just that you are going to hear testimony from (Aguilar Aguilar’s roommate) that on the night of Oct. 15 he came home from work,” Dano said. “There is some inconsistencies, he was interviewed about three or four times (the roommate), but in essence his testimony will be that he saw that Mr. Aguilar had a lot of blood on his clothing. He asked him what had happened, Mr. Aguilar said he had been in a fight.”

Dano said DNA and ballistic evidence cannot conclusively match the 9mm gun found in Aguilar Aguilar’s room to the two bullets recovered from Lopez Santos’ body. He pointed out however that the markings are consistent enough to match the gun to the bullets, but said prosecutors can’t say “100 percent it’s the same gun.”

Bustamante said a mixture of Lopez Santos’ DNA and another person’s DNA was found on the gun, but Aguilar Aguilar was excluded as a “significant contributor” to the second set of DNA.

In regard to the charge of intimidating a witness, Dano said evidence shows that Aguilar Aguilar told his roommate he shot Lopez Santos. Aguilar Aguilar allegedly threatened his roommate by sticking a gun in his ribs, Dano said, and telling him he was going to kill him.

“(The roommate) says he talked Mr. Aguilar out of shooting him, pleading for his life. Mr. Aguilar got out of the rig and threw a rifle, for some reason, threw a long rifle, or an object, into a pond,” Dano explained.

The account of Aguilar Aguilar throwing the rifle into a pond was reportedly confirmed after police were able to locate the rifle in the pond.

Bustamante questioned the roommate’s believability, stating the man changed his story about the alleged threat multiple times.

“Ladies and gentlemen every time he (the roommate) tells that story it gets a little bit better,” Bustamante said. “When he first spoke to (a detective) he stated that Mr. Aguilar pointed the gun at his belly. And later when interviewed by the defense investigator and by the prosecuting attorney the story changed, now it was his ribs that the gun was pointed at, not his belly.”

The trial continued today and is expected to last between two and four weeks.