Wife of surviving victim testifies

EPHRATA — The wife of the sole surviving victim from the 2016 state Route 26 murder testified Tuesday in Grant County Superior Court.

Carmen Marisol Alcaraz Orozco, the wife of 10 years of surviving victim Jose Rafael Cano Barrientos, was quizzed by defense attorneys about her and her husband’s work with multi-level marketing supplement supplier Herbalife.

Among a suite of forensic evidence that the prosecution argues definitively places co-defendants Gustavo Tapia Rodriguez and Fernando Marcos Gutierrez at the scene of the crime was a fingerprint from Tapia Rodriguez discovered on one of the victim’s car door handles.

Aiming to poke holes in this connection, defense counsel had suggested that the defendant’s fingerprints may have appeared on the victim’s vehicle from a chance encounter.

Bob Kentner, who represents Tapia Rodriguez, had suggested it would be possible that Barrientos and his wife had sold supplements at the Shady Tree RV Park where Tapia Rodriguez lived. If so, the defense suggested, it was possible the defendant’s fingerprints had been incidentally left on the car door.

In court Tuesday, however, Alcaraz Orozco insisted that she had never been to the RV Park, and only passed through George on her way elsewhere, including to Quincy.

Nevertheless, the defense continued to examine the possibility that the fingerprint had been left on the car while it was parked somewhere, instead of at the scene of the crime as the prosecutors alleged. Defense counsel noted that Alcaraz Orozco didn’t have detailed paperwork from the time that would definitively show she had not sought out customers at the RV park.

They also explored other possible locations the car may have been parked, asking Alcaraz Orozco if the car in question was parked on the street at home, or in a publicly-accessible place at her place of work or worship. In all cases, Alcaraz Orozco conceded that a stranger could have theoretically had access to her car.

The defense also asked Alcaraz Orozco whether her husband’s memory or ability to communicate had been affected by the trauma of the shooting. While she said that his memory had been unaffected, she noted that her husband had difficulty speaking for a period of time while he healed.

“He couldn’t speak, it took him about three months to regain his voice,” Alcaraz Orozco said through a court-appointed interpreter. “He could speak, but very low. He couldn’t speak like a normal person.”

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.