Love Me or I'll Kill You

by Lee Butcher

  “While you went to the convenience store, and on the way back, had you heard any helicopters?” Athan asked. Forney said no. “Had you seen any police cars in the area?” Athan asked. Forney again said that he had not. Athan took her seat beside Paula as Pruner rose to cross-examine the witness.

  Forney said that when the shooting started, he ducked down in his car. “When the police started running through, crossing the street, and I mean, it was so quick, I backed up,” Forney said. “I got down and stayed down while they were firing.”

  Pruner asked Forney if he took his eyes off the parking lot while he backed up. “No, I was just trying to get the hell out of there,” Forney said. The witness added that after the gunman disappeared, it was the last he saw of him.

  “Is it fair to say what you have is a snapshot image of what you saw?” Pruner asked.

  “Oh yeah. It’s been two years.”

  Leon Wynne, who had demonstrated the MAC-11 for Paula and Chino at University Gun and Pawn, told the jury that he had tried to convince Paula and Chino not to buy it. “They were pretty much knowing what they wanted,” he said. “They pointed down at the MAC-eleven.”

  “Did both of them point?” Athan asked. Wynne answered that only Paula pointed. He walked to the display case, Wynne said, and told Paula and Chino that the MAC-11 wasn’t a very good gun.

  “I said, ‘You can’t hunt with it. It’s not a target gun,’” Wynne testified. “‘It’s a very inaccurate gun.’ And she said, ‘Well, we’re interested in that gun.’ So I took it out of the case and told them, ‘This is a good toy if you just want a toy to play with, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.’”

  Athan showed Wynne a display case with two guns in it and asked if he could identify the guns. The witness identified a MAC-11 and a Glock. Wynne said the Glock was “a top-quality pistol with extreme accuracy.. . . The other one is for somebody who wants to play Rambo.”

  Wynne said he took the MAC-11 from the display case and handed it to Paula, who handed it to Chino, and then stepped back while they discussed the purchase. Paula asked Wynne if he had a layaway plan. He said Paula seemed nervous.

  “She was kind of blinking a little bit and kind of looking at him,” Wynne said. “Like you have the obvious sensation that he was in charge of the situation, but she was the actual buyer.”

  Athan asked if he remembered anything else. “I remember she was looking at him like she was waiting for his approval or something,” Wynne said, “like he had the say-so of what was going on.”

  When Pruner cross-examined Wynne, he immediately tried to establish that Paula didn’t seem to fear Chino. “Paula Gutierrez and the man appeared affectionate toward each other when they were in your shop?” Pruner asked.

  “Yeah, I knew they were a couple.”

  Pruner established that Wynne was familiar with the “straw man purchase” of a firearm, or when one person buys a gun for someone else, which is not approved by the federal government. Wynne said he knew that was a felony.

  At Pruner’s request Wynne read from a standard gun purchase form: “‘Are you the actual buyer of the firearm indicated on this form? If the answer is no to this question, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm to you.’” Wynne said, “She answered yes.”

  “Although you indicated it appeared that Paula Gutierrez was looking for the man’s approval,” Pruner said, “your concern didn’t rise to the level that you thought she was buying the gun as a straw man, did you?”

  “No, sir. By law we can refuse to sell a gun to anybody for any reason at all.”

  Wynne responded to more questions about the MAC-11. “It’s for people who watch a lot of Rambo movies,” Wynne said. “They think they can shoot nine thousand times by loading the gun just once. It’s not a quality weapon.”

  “In fact, when she (Paula) was talking about the gun, she told you she wanted a gun that would shoot a lot?”

  “I said I would not recommend this,” he said, adding that a good used Glock would be about the same price as the MAC-11. “I said, ‘The only good thing about this weapon is you can load it and shoot a lot before you have to reload it.’”

  Wynne said Paula didn’t want the gun for protection, but as “just something to play around with.” Wynne said it was common for women who buy guns to bring men to give them advice. He testified there was nothing suspicious about Paula and Chino.

  Although Paula didn’t buy ammunition at the time, Wynne said, she asked how much it cost. Paula gave him $100 to hold the gun for her.

  Athan called several witnesses in an attempt to show that Chino dominated Paula and that he was violent. Pruner, in cross-examination, elicited testimony that undermined the defense’s position. One witness said that Chino “was a very friendly guy.”

  Chapter 21

  In another bench conference, the attorneys were engaged in what passed for a bare-knuckle brawl in a courtroom. Athan and Goins hammered their points as they battled to have the jury hear testimony from April Hildreth, a girl Chino had beaten several years ago. Ober, Pruner, and Turpin were determined to block it. The judge listened to both sides argue outside the presence of the jury.

  Goins told the judge that Hildreth’s testimony was important because it went to the heart of why Paula was afraid of Chino, and because it was relevant to the duress defense. She said it was also relevant in corroborating evidence about Chino’s violent nature.

  “If she is not allowed to testify about what Mr. DeJesus did to her and the injuries that incurred as a result of that,” Goins said, “we want to be in the position to be able to proffer her testimony.”

  “I didn’t previously rule on this?” Padgett asked.

  “Judge, I believe you did,” Turpin said. She said Padgett had stated that Paula could testify only to what she actually knew about Hildreth’s relationship with Chino. “I believe that was your court’s ruling, that she could testify to what she knew, but the details were not coming in.”

  “That sounds like it,” Padgett said. He looked at Goins. “But you want to go beyond that?”

  Goins said that Chino had lied to Paula about his battering Hildreth and that she had not been able to tell the defense psychiatrist about it. Goins claimed it would be important for the defense medical expert to have this information.

  “Hold on a second,” Padgett said. “Is Dr. Maher here to tell us about Mr. DeJesus?”

  Goins said Maher would testify that Paula suffered from PTSD, based on trauma she experienced from Chino. Goins said she had noticed that the state, during cross-examination, was trying to show that “Mr. DeJesus is a really friendly guy and he would never do anything to Miss Gutierrez.”

  Goins added that Maher relied heavily on what family and acquaintances had said in diagnosing Paula’s condition. Padgett countered that everyone in the world could testify and that there would be no end to it. “He (the psychiatrist) can tell everything and anything he ever heard about this guy and maybe even read about this guy,” Padgett said.

  Goins countered, “If it relates to corroborating things he’s already been told.”

  The defense attorney tried hard to convince the judge, but Padgett was unmoved. “We’re not going to let anybody and everybody come down here to testify about anything and everything just because Dr. Maher knows about it,” he said.

  Goins kept pushing. Padgett said, “I think I’ll stick with my previous ruling.”

  Even then, Goins kept at it. “For the purposes of proving Miss Hildreth’s testimony,” she said, “it is very important that we are able to make a clear record on this about what she will testify to . . . by actually having her testify in court, on the record.”

  Padgett said he would allow the testimony, but not with the jury present. Athan countered the testimony should be heard by the jury.

  “Just totally trash Mr. DeJesus,” Padgett said.

  Athan said that wasn’t true. The state had already tried to paint DeJesus in a favorable light, she said. “‘He w
as just a friendly guy, wasn’t he?’ In public he was a friendly guy. In private with a woman—”

  Padgett said if Chino beat one woman, he probably beat another. That was the pattern. The judge wanted to continue the trial. “Get it going,” he said. “We got to finish this trial this week. Bring her in. We’ll hear what she has to say.”

  Hildreth, like Paula, looked like a vulnerable woman. She was a pretty blonde who wore a horizontally striped blue-and-white sweater. Hildreth fidgeted and seemed uncomfortable in the witness chair.

  Hildreth testified that she was fifteen when she met Chino and moved in with him. She recounted details of beatings she had suffered at Chino’s hands. At first, she testified, Chino was “nice,” but then became domineering and physically and emotionally abusive. Chino never took her anywhere, Hildreth testified, and would not allow her to talk or look at people. If she did go out, he would beat her, Hildreth said.

  The witness said Chino talked about Paula constantly, and made her wear perfume and lotions that Paula used. Hildreth said Chino wanted her to be Paula. She said that he became meaner as time passed.

  “He used to hit me,” she said. “He used to scream at me, slap my face, scratch me, and belittle me.” Hildreth said she didn’t do anything to provoke this type of behavior. “I didn’t do anything to deserve what he did to me.”

  Once when she left the apartment, Hildreth said, Chino slapped her and “tossed me around, screaming at me.” Another time, Hildreth said, he banged my head on the floor. “I was laying down and he was straddling me and he took both of his hands like this”—Hildreth demonstrated—“on my ears and was banging my head, kicking me in front of his friend, who did nothing but sit and watch.”

  Chino made her feel “nasty,” Hildreth testified, because he belittled her so much. Hildreth said Chino never took her to the movies or a store, and that he only showed affection when he wanted something from her. Hildreth said Chino was always “throwing Paula in my face” and making her feel worthless.

  Athan showed Hildreth the damning photograph of Paula holding the MAC-11. “Would you have taken a picture like that for Nestor DeJesus?” she asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he told me to.”

  Athan asked questions to determine what happened that caused Hildreth’s mother to file an assault and battery charge against Chino. Hildreth said they were standing by the Slurpee machines behind the 7-Eleven where Chino worked. She was smoking, and Chino didn’t like the way she did it. He told Hildreth she held the smoke too long when she inhaled. “He told me if I didn’t stop holding it longer than I was supposed to, he was going to punch me,” Hildreth said.

  “He told you don’t inhale so long?” Athan asked.

  “He said, ‘Inhale it and blow it back out. If you don’t, I’m going to punch you.’”

  Hildreth inhaled in a way Chino didn’t like, she said, and he punched her in the breast, hard. Although she didn’t tell anyone about it immediately, Hildreth said, her breast started to hurt “really bad and it got real swollen.” Hildreth said she lifted her shirt to show her ex-stepmother “and when I did, it busted.”

  Athan asked her to be more specific. “All kinds of stuff started pouring out of it,” Hildreth said. “It was like thick, maybe like a yellowish color, yellowish red.”

  Police picked Chino up after Hildreth’s former stepmother filed a complaint, and a police officer photographed Hildreth’s injured breast. Athan introduced the photographs into evidence. Chino was never tried on the assault charge, Hildreth testified, because she went back to live with him.

  A month later, Hildreth testified, Chino insisted that he hadn’t hit her. An argument followed while they were at Lissette’s house, Hildreth said, and Chino made here take off all her clothes and sit on the couch. “He said the only way I was leaving him . . . was in a body bag,” Hildreth said. “I was scared.”

  Athan asked if Hildreth had been diagnosed with any mental disorders. The witness answered, “Post-traumatic stress syndrome.” The parallels between the way Chino treated Hildreth and Paula were uncanny. If only the jury could hear it, Athan thought.

  Under cross-examination, Hildreth told Pruner that her post-traumatic stress syndrome wasn’t caused solely by Chino’s treatment, but by abuse from her father and another man. Although Chino abused her, Pruner established that Hildreth had not committed any crimes and Chino had not asked her to.

  Lissette Santiago didn’t look happy. Sitting in the witness chair, Chino’s mother gave Deeann Athan a hard look. She blamed the defense attorney, at least in part, for Paula’s parents gaining custody of Ashley. Santiago had testified earlier for the state and now Athan had called her for the defense.

  Athan knew that Santiago would be a difficult witness. In Santiago’s words she was “pissed off” at Athan. The defense attorney said earlier, “She was absolutely devoted to her son. I think she would have done anything for him.”

  Athan established through her direct that Santiago was Chino’s mother, and that she babysat with Ashley. Santiago said that Chino had a “very bad temper,” but she wasn’t afraid of him. “Sometimes it has to be his way or no way.”

  Athan asked what she meant.

  “With his temper, that’s all.” Santiago said that Chino never lost his temper with Paula in front of her. Athan asked about the holes that Chino had punched in the wall, but Santiago was careful with her answer.

  “I didn’t see him do it,” she said. “I can’t say he did it, because I didn’t see him.”

  Santiago admitted that she had heard Chino talk about committing suicide once when Paula was present. “He said, ‘If I got to go to jail, I got to kill myself first,’” Santiago said.

  Although Chino lost his temper with Paula and her parents, Santiago said, he never threatened them. Athan asked Santiago about the argument between Paula and Chino in April 2001, when Chino knocked the bedroom door down. Santiago downplayed the incident.

  “She said she had an argument with Chino,” she said. “She was crying. She was upset. There was toys around and stuff.”

  “How about the bedroom door?” Athan asked.

  “I didn’t notice that.”

  Athan asked Santiago several times if she had noticed anything about the bedroom door. Santiago answered that she didn’t remember. Later, Santiago said, Chino told her that he had kicked the door down.

  Santiago denied that she wanted Paula to leave after that fight with Chino. Instead, Santiago said, she offered to let Chino stay with her until they cooled off. She said that Paula wanted to go to New York.

  “Isn’t it true that he had kicked her out?”

  “No. He didn’t kick her out.”

  “When he came back, did he tell you, ‘Get this bitch out of here’?”

  “No. He was quiet. He sat down in the living room.”

  Santiago admitted that she bought Paula a one-way ticket to New York, but hedged when asked if Paula said that Chino slapped her. “Yes, but she didn’t make it specific,” she said. “She was crying. I don’t know.”

  Pushed further, Santiago admitted, “Nestor told me he slapped her. My son told me.”

  Santiago said she didn’t remember if she spoke to Paula’s parents on the telephone. She denied telling them that Chino would kill Paula if she stayed.

  Chino’s mother said she didn’t spend much time with him or Paula, and that Paula had no friends. “She didn’t talk to nobody.” Santiago said Paula never left the apartment until she and Chino got the Xterra for her. Then Paula would take Ashley to the park and the beach, Santiago said.

  Asked to describe her relationship with Chino, Santiago said, “He was my son. It was okay.”

  “Isn’t it true that you were very close to your son?”

  Santiago said that was true. She testified that she bought the ticket for Paula to return to Tampa. “She was mad at me because I sent her to New York,” Santiago said.

  “She n
ever told you that, did she?”

  “She didn’t have to. Chino [told me].” Santiago said Paula wouldn’t speak to her, acted “real cold,” and told Chino she didn’t want Santiago in the apartment. Santiago admitted that Paula didn’t tell her that, but that Chino relayed the message.

  “Have you ever described Nestor “Chino” DeJesus by saying that he could snap at any time?” Athan asked. “He was very unpredictable.”

  Santiago answered yes, and Athan had no more questions for her. The lawyer sat down feeling that she had been questioning a stump.

  Under ASA Jay Pruner’s cross-examination, Santiago said Chino had been steadily employed until he was fired a week or so before July 6, 2001. She said that her son had tried to be a good provider for Paula and Ashley.

  “When she wanted to join a health club, he signed her up for a health club,” Pruner said. “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Athan objected, but Padgett overruled. Pruner asked, “She wanted to go; he signed her up and got the membership?” Athan once more objected and was overruled by the judge.

  Pruner asked Santiago if she and Chino got Paula a car because she never went anywhere. “Nestor got Paula the car because she was, like, bored in the house,” Santiago said. “No place to go, and stuff. And so he spoke to me and he said, ‘Mother, get a car so Paula could take the baby out and go to the beach, and stuff like that.’”

  Santiago said Chino had a van from work and didn’t need a car for himself. Before she bought a ticket for Paula to go back to New York, Santiago said, she offered to let Paula stay in the apartment. Chino did not object to her buying Paula’s ticket to visit her family in New York.

  Padgett gave the lawyers permission to approach the bench when Pruner asked. The prosecutor wondered if some testimony should be taken without the jury. The questions he wanted to ask centered on Santiago’s answer when Athan asked if Chino had ever threatened to commit suicide. Santiago answered yes, and qualified it: “‘They were talking about her doing something and I am saying before he would go to jail, he would kill himself,’” Pruner quoted. “The implication is that they were talking about committing a crime. I don’t know if they’re talking about committing this crime or the flower shop. . . .”