Week 4: Santa Maria Ibarra Murder Trial
Emotional testimony from another prosecution witness capped the fourth week of Santa Maria’s ongoing U-Haul murder trial.
The woman testified she hung out with the six defendants and alleged gang members on trial and knew they were looking for the victim in this case, 28 year old Anthony Ibarra, who the prosecution says was kidnapped, tortured, beaten and stabbed to death in March of 2013 over unpaid drug debts.
“Did (defendant) Anthony Solis say anything else about Anthony Ibarra?”, asked prosecutor Ann Bramsen of the witness on Friday, “just that to tell Angel (prior witness) to stop hanging out with him because eventually he was going to get caught up with and whoever was with him was going to go down with him.”
The witness said she was with defendant Santos Sauceda the day after Ibarra’s death as they looked for the rented U-Haul truck containing Ibarra’s body.
“We went straight to Nipomo”, the witness testified, “I remember we were looking for a U-Haul.”
“How did you know you were looking for a U-Haul?”, Bramsen asked the witness, “because we were told”, the witness replied.
The woman said she learned of Ibarra’s death from the father of her son, a key prosecution called at the start of the trial who testified he saw the defendants on trial inside his Santa Maria home and heard them assault Ibarra in a back bedroom of the home.
“What did he tell you happened?”, Bramsen asked the witness.
“I asked him what do you mean? And he said, he just looked at me and said Anthony is dead”, the witness replied. “What did he say about his involvement in what happened?”, Bramsen asked, “that he heard everything”, the witness replied.
“And in your experience in the gang lifestyle in this community, do Surenos gang members go back to the children of rats?”, asked defense attorney Michael Scott in cross-examination of the witness, “no they do not”, the witness replied.
The witness testified she was a methamphetamine user and dealer for the defendants and was immersed in the gang lifestyle at the time of Ibarra’s death.
She said she needed the help of transcripts of her police interviews and her Grand Jury testimony because of her poor memory of events before and after Ibarra’s death.
The woman was also challenged over her decision to accept immunity from prosecution and enter the Witness Protection Program where she now lives clean and sober and rent-free with her son whom she temporarily lost custody of due to her drug use.
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A man who says he saw the lifeless body of the victim in Santa Maria’s U-Haul murder trial was called as a prosecution witness.
With the help of an interpreter, the man testified he saw Ibarra’s body inside the Santa Maria home he lived in where the prosecution says Ibarra was held against his will, tortured, beaten and stabbed to death over unpaid drug debts.
“I kept talking to him, asking him what had happened, if he was drunk or what, just trying to wake him up”, the witness testified.
The witness said he was renting living space in the garage of the home on West Donovan Road where the alleged murder took place.
The man said he was told by one of the accomplices to stay away from the home on the night of March 17, 2013 when the prosecution says Ibarra was killed.
The witness testified he returned to the home on Monday, March 18, 2013 and saw Anthony Ibarra’s body in a bedroom inside the home on West Donovan Road.
“I noticed that his body was beaten up”, the witness testified, “I thought he was asleep, or drunk, when I saw him with a flashlight, and I saw the cut on the neck, I immediately thought that he was dead.”
The witness testified he had been smoking methamphetamine at the time of Ibarra’s death and was encouraged to report what he saw to police by his employer.
His report spurred the police investigation that led to the arrest of the six defendants on trial.
Under cross-examination, the witness testified he did not see any of the defendants at the home when he discovered Anthony Ibarra’s body on Monday, March 18, 2013.
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The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department deputy who found the U-Haul truck in Santa Maria’s so-called U-Haul murder trial was on the witness stand Wednesday.
The deputy who discovered the truck parked on a street in an Orcutt neighborhood testified he saw blood near a padlock to the door of the cargo area of the truck and called for backup.
“As we were taking photographs, we cut the lock, we opened the back door of the U-Haul”, the deputy testified, “immediately upon opening the door I saw Anthony Ibarra laying face down.”
“We carefully made back entry into the U-Haul, we pulled back the blankets that were covering Mr. Ibarra’s head, and immediately upon pulling back the blankets I could see that his face was covered in blood”, the deputy testified, “I checked his artery to see if he had a pulse, I found that he did not have a pulse and was cold to the touch.”
The prosecution continued to call witnesses who were in contact with the six defendants on trial before, during and after the killing of Anthony Ibarra on March 17, 2013, allegedly over unpaid drug debts Ibarra owed to the defendants.
Witnesses called have testified to being methamphetamine users at the time of Ibarra’s death.
“Did you and AJ (defendant Anthony Solis) ever talk about Anthony Ibarra?”, asked prosecutor Ann Bramsen, “One time”, replied one of the witnesses who testified, “What did AJ tell you regarding Anthony Ibarra?”, Bramsen asked, “Just that I may not want to be hanging out with him, because he owed money and it wasn’t good to hang out with him”, the witness replied.
“Did he tell you why it wasn’t good?”, Bramsen asked, “Not that I remember specifically, but its one of those things that everybody that uses drugs knows”, the witness replied.
Most of the witnesses have been granted “use immunity” by the prosecution in exchange for their testimony.
Defense attorneys challeged the “use immunity” rule the prosecution is invoking in calling the various witnesses.
The defense argued the witnesses are misled into believing anything they say on the witness stand cannot be used to prosecute them at a later date, therefore impacting their testimony.
Prosecutor Ann Bramsen acknowledged she is granting “use immunity” for the witness testimony and not “transactional immunity”.
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Santa Maria’s ongoing, so-called U-Haul murder trial has shifted focus to the people and events in the aftermath of the murder of Anthony Ibarra over unpaid drug debts to alleged gang members in March of 2013.
The prosecution called a woman to the witness stand Tuesday who testified she drove the rented U-Haul truck with Anthony Ibarra’s body to the Orcutt neighborhood where it was found two days after the alleged murder.
The woman testified she was a friend of the victim, Anthony Ibarra, and a former girlfriend of one of the six defendants on trial, Santos Sauceda.
“Mr. Sauceda said we need to take the U-Haul to Orcutt”, said the prosecution witness, “What did you do?”, asked prosecutor Ann Bramsen, “I agreed and we took the U-Haul to Orcutt.” the witness responded.
The woman testified she helped Santos Sauceda sell methamphetamine and was a heavy user of the drug at the time of Ibarra’s death and was on probation for petty theft and other drug-related convictions.
The prosecution claims Sauceda, and the five other defendants on trial, were inside the home on West Donovan Road in Santa Maria on March 17, 2013 where Anthony Ibarra was allegedly held against his will, tortured, beaten and stabbed to death over unpaid drug “taxes”, and were part of an elaborate scheme to cover up the killing by disposing of evidence and leaving Ibarra’s body in the back of a rented U-Haul truck.
“Mr. Sauceda drove us over to a hardware store and asked me to buy a padlock”, the witness testified. “Did you ask why?”, prosecutor Bramsen asked, “I did not.” “
“What did you do?”, Bramsen asked, “he gave me the money and I went into the store and I bought a padlock for him.”
The witness testified the U-Haul truck was initially parked in Nipomo after the alleged murder of Anthony Ibarra, and she and Sauceda had to search for it.
“You asked him what was in the U-Haul because you were worried about getting in trouble, correct?”, Bramsen asked, “Yes” replied the witness, “and did he tell you what was in there?”, the witness was asked, “he told me as far as he knew there was furniture in there”, the witness responded.
“What did you agree to do next?”, Bramsen asked the witness, “I agreed to drive it to Santa Maria”, the woman replied.
The witness testified she drove the truck to Orcutt not knowing Ibarra’s body was in the back.
“He handed me a pair of gloves and some Lysol wipes”, the woman testified, “What kind of gloves?”, Bramsen asked, “Blue latex gloves. Did you put them on? I did. Then he gave you some Lysol wipes? Yes. Did you take them? I did. Did you ask why? I did not. Did he tell you what to do? He just said we are taking the U-Haul to Orcutt. You put the gloves on? I did. You took the wipes? I did. You got in the U-Haul? I did. What happened next? He didn’t have a specific place for taking the U-Haul so I got on the freeway, drove it to Orcutt, with him following behind me, and pretty much parked it wherever I wanted to. So you just picked a random street?
I did.”
The woman testified Sauceda told her to wipe down the inside of the truck after she parked it.
“What did you wipe down specifically?”, Bramsen asked, “the steering wheel, the dash board, the seats, the seat belt, the door on the inside of the cab, I wanted to get rid of my fingerprints just because I figured at that point I didn’t know if the U-Haul was stolen, if there was stolen furniture in it, I wasn’t sure, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t tied with the inside of that U-Haul”, the witness replied.
Under cross-examination by the defense, the woman testified she was not allowed to have an attorney with her when she was being questioned by Santa Maria Police after she and Sauceda were arrested and the transcript of her police interview was flawed with inaccuracies about what she said.
“Even though I stated that (have an attorney), the cops still kept questioning me, trying to make me answer, which I did not want to”, the woman testified.
The woman testified she hid methamphetamine she had on her when she and Sauceda were arrested inside her body between her legs which police never found, and then sold the drugs after she was released.
The woman was granted immunity from prosecution for her role in the aftermath of Ibarra’s death in exchange for her testimony.
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Santa Maria’s U-Haul murder trial resumed Monday with defense attorneys continuing their tough cross-examination of a key prosecution witness and “snitch” gang member who testified against his fellow gang members.
Defense attorneys continued to challenge the credibility of the prosecution witness who testified he saw, but did not participate in, the alleged kidnap, torture and eventual killing of Anthony Ibarra in March of 2013 over unpaid drug debts to his fellow Santa Maria gang members.
The gang member and prosecution witness accepted a plea deal that gave him a lesser prison sentence of 15 years as an accessory to murder rather that the possible life in prison without parole murder sentences facing the six defendants on trial.
“Did you tell her (prosecutor Ann Bramsen) that you didn’t want to be a part of it no more because you had been a part of it up to that point, and you just wanted to stop being a part of it”, asked defense attorney Addison Steele in his cross-examination of the witness, “yes”, replied the witness.
The gang member testified he saw some of the six defendants begin what the prosecution claims was a deadly assault on Anthony Ibarra inside a Santa Maria home back in March 17, 2013.
“When anybody showed up that you saw, nobody had any weapons on them, is that correct?”, asked defense attorney Adrian Andrade, “Correct”, replied the witness.
Defense attorneys challenged the witness on how he admitted to lying to Santa Maria Police investigators about what happened to Anthony Ibarra after he was arrested after Ibarra’s body was found in the back of a rented U-Haul truck parked in Orcutt.
The defense also targeted the witness’ heavy methamphetamine use at the time of the alleged crime, how it affected his memory and inaccuracies in his statements to the prosecution as well as his testimony at trial.
One particular challenge came to the witness’ testimony about seeing Anthony Ibarra on his hands and knees during the alleged attack with a belt around his neck like a dog leash being pulled by at least one of the defendants on trial,
“So then your story changed did it not?”, asked defense attorney Andrade”, “he was pulled to the side or pulled down or something like that? Do you remember saying that later?”, Andrade asked, “Yes, but there was still a belt around his neck”, the witness responded.
The defense is raising the key issue of “reasonable doubt” in the eyes of the jury pointing out the latest witness, and others who have already testified, never said they actually saw any of the defendants on trial deliver what experts said were the fatal blows to Ibarra, stab wounds to the neck with a screwdriver.
“You knew that when you were going to snitch, you had to give them good information about everyone that’s been charged, is that right or wrong?”, asked defense attorney Steele, “I knew I had to tell the truth.”, the witness responded.
