Jury selection in the Sierra LaMar murder case continues as attorneys for the suspect and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office continue to disagree on what evidence will be admissible in the coming trial.
The trial for Antolin Garcia Torres, 23 of Morgan Hill, is expected to begin in early January at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. Garcia Torres is accused of kidnapping and murdering Sierra, a 15-year-old Morgan Hill resident, the morning of her disappearance March 16, 2012, according to authorities.
Recent court filings indicate Garcia Torres’ attorneys from the county’s Alternate Defender’s Office think statements made by the defendant before officers formally arrested him and read him his Miranda rights should be tossed from consideration.
Furthermore, recent news reports this week indicate that Garcia Torres’ attorneys have filed additional briefs suggesting that Sierra voluntarily ran away from home, and was not a victim of any criminal activity by the defendant.
Garcia Torres’ motion to suppress his “statement obtained through custodial interrogation without benefit of Miranda,” signed by Deputy Alternate Defender Brian Matthews, says the defendant was “detained” before he was interrogated about Sierra’s disappearance by sheriff’s deputies April 7, 2012. Deputies transported him to the sheriff’s substation in San Martin and questioned Garcia Torres “for four hours,” the motion states.
“He was not advised of his Miranda rights until somewhere in the middle of the interrogation,” reads the motion. Matthews claims that anything Garcia Torres said before being read his Miranda rights should be inadmissible during the upcoming trial.
Authorities have not said whether Garcia Torres directly implicated himself in these statements. In court, he has steadfastly denied any involvement in Sierra’s disappearance, having entered a plea of not guilty.
Deputy D.A. David Boyd, in his response to Matthews’ motion, disagrees with the notion that Garcia Torres was under arrest while he made statements before he was read his Miranda rights. Thus, the statements should still be permissible in the trial, Boyd argues.
Garcia Torres was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in May 2012. He is charged with Sierra’s murder, as well as three attempted 2009 kidnappings in the parking lots of two Safeway grocery stores in Morgan Hill.
“Defendant was not in custody when…he agreed to speak to officers; was told he was not under arrest; was neither searched nor handcuffed; was interviewed in a non-accusatory manner in an unlocked room at the police station; and was driven home after the interview,” Boyd’s motion states.
News reports this week further referred to recent court filings by Garcia Torres’ attorneys that suggest Sierra ran away from home.
The D.A.’s office and investigators rejected this theory early on in the investigation. Even though Sierra’s remains have not been found, police think Sierra is dead due to her lack of means to financially support herself, her dependence on family and friends and her lack of contact—including through social media where she had a vast “digital footprint”—since she disappeared.
Sierra vanished while walking to her school bus stop near her home at the intersection of Palm and Dougherty avenues, according to authorities. She was a sophomore at Sobrato High School at the time.
Attorneys and prospective jurors will return to court Nov. 14 in San Jose to resume the jury selection process.
