- 8 hours ago
A Plan to Kill S02E02 Killer C Episode 2 Engsub
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05There had been a 911 call, shots fired.
00:09You hear a scream on the audio, and then there's a pause, which was just not normal.
00:15It definitely appeared there was some element of an ambush.
00:19Is it a robbery gone bad?
00:22Witnesses saw a vehicle fleeing the area of the crime scene.
00:25She took the initiative to contact our unit, which specializes in stalking, months prior to the murder.
00:32We learned that he was following over 470 social media accounts that were associated to the high school.
00:38We found weapons, computer searches, and he was photographing the actual classrooms.
00:44This was all part of his larger plan.
00:47The San Diego Police Department ended up surrounding the school so that we can ensure the students were safe.
00:52We were scared. I didn't leave the house that day.
00:56He was watching, waiting, and it was clear that this murder was premeditated.
01:42I heard a car driving away, and there's a guy that's laying out here.
01:52That morning, I was on my way into work, actually, when the call came out.
01:57There had been 911 calls of shots fired, and that there was a person down in the 4500 block of
02:03Kansas Street.
02:04When patrol officers arrived, they found an unidentified victim, fatally shot.
02:09He was pronounced deceased at the scene.
02:13When we arrived, the streets were already cordoned off with police tape, and officers were at each end of the
02:21street.
02:25It was a sunny February day, beautiful San Diego morning, but right on the sidewalk, you see a man lying
02:32in a large pool of blood.
02:35Patrol officers told us that they saw an apartment door open adjacent to the crime scene,
02:42and so officers made entry into the apartment unit to make sure that there were no other injured people.
02:48When they did that, they found a wallet with a driver's license.
02:53And there were several photos around that apartment that appeared to be the same person that was deceased on the
02:59sidewalk.
03:00So, based on the photos and the driver's license, we identified the victim as 36-year-old Hispanic male Mario
03:08Fierro.
03:10Now, we need to quickly learn why and how this murder occurred.
03:15The decedent was laying almost directly behind a Mini Cooper.
03:20That Mini Cooper had the trunk lid open, and I could see a set of golf clubs in the back
03:26of the trunk.
03:28I did contemplate in that moment that the victim was possibly accosted by a robber who was trying to steal
03:36something from him,
03:37and approached him as he was loading up his golf bag into the trunk of the Mini Cooper.
03:43This happened in North Park. North Park is generally a safe community.
03:48There were shell casings on the street.
03:50It definitely appeared, based on how the scene was initially, that there was some element of an ambush.
03:58It was a surprise attack.
04:01There was impact spatter all around the head that was visible from several feet away.
04:05I could tell that this was up close and personal.
04:13So, as I was processing the crime scene, the detectives on my team began to canvas the neighborhood
04:18and try and locate other witnesses that may have seen or heard things.
04:22It's a very densely populated area, so when the gunshots were fired at that early hour,
04:28this drew a lot of attention from the neighbors.
04:31There were people looking out their windows.
04:34We identified one primary witness that actually happened to be driving down the street
04:40as the commotion was actually occurring.
04:44And she notices that two people are involved in a fight.
04:48She says that one of the individuals is actually holding what appears to her as a white thermometer,
04:55and the individual is holding it to the other person's forehead.
05:00Now, this is during the time of COVID, so to her, she believed it was a COVID thermometer.
05:07She continues to drive, and then she sees that our now suspect is taking off in a vehicle
05:13that appeared to her to be a hatchback and driving northbound on Kansas Street.
05:17I remember actually asking her several times that she was sure about what she had observed,
05:24and she was adamant that it was a white object.
05:28And as an investigator, that's a key piece of information,
05:32because as the investigation evolves, that's one piece that we're either going to have to explain
05:38or we're going to have to figure out the discrepancy.
05:43At this point, detectives, they are also looking for any type of cameras,
05:48anything to help the investigation.
05:51Approximately six homes away from where the actual shooting took place,
05:56we located one surveillance camera that captured the suspect vehicle as it fled the scene.
06:01As we reviewed the surveillance footage,
06:05we observed a dark blue Volkswagen, like, Jetta-style car as a hatchback.
06:11And we saw that vehicle fleeing the area of the crime scene immediately after hearing gunshots.
06:27We continued reviewing the surveillance footage from earlier in the morning,
06:30and that same vehicle arrived at about 6 o'clock in the morning prior to the crime occurring.
06:36So we identified that car as a strong possible suspect vehicle.
06:44But while I'm on scene, an individual flagged me down.
06:50He said, hey, what's all the police activity about here?
06:53He identified himself as a Homeland Security investigator.
06:56He showed me his badge, and then he proceeded to ask me the identity of the decedent.
07:02And then he began to tell me that he was cousins with a female named Amy Gambara,
07:10and that Amy had called him.
07:13She said that her fiancé, Mario, had not shown up to work,
07:16and asked him to go by Mario's house to see if he was okay.
07:26He says, my cousin, Amy, she works at Cathedral High School,
07:30and her fiancé, Mario, was working there as a teacher and a coach.
07:35And Amy, she's been a victim of stalking from a guy named Jesse Alvarez,
07:40and I believe that Jesse may have something to do with the murder of Mario Fierro.
07:46We didn't know if this information was actually credible,
07:49so there was still a lot of investigating to do.
07:52But it provided us with a lead.
07:55Now we had a name, Jesse Alvarez, who had a connection to the victim,
07:59and who also had a possible motive.
08:02So we needed to locate Amy Gambara and make sure that she was not in any danger.
08:09Amy had tried to get a restraining order.
08:11She was scared, and she felt helpless.
08:15He tells us she has this histrionic disorder
08:17where she thinks relationships are closer than they are.
08:20I told her plenty of times I did not want to date her.
08:23She expressed romantic interest to me, but I always said no.
08:28He maintains that.
08:29I don't know Mario, and I never dated Amy.
08:41We had a gunshot victim identified as Mario Fierro.
08:44While investigators and crime scene detectives were beginning to process the scene,
08:49we learned that Mario's fiancé, Amy Gambara,
08:52was the victim of stalking from a guy named Jesse Alvarez.
08:58I left the crime scene to drive up to Cathedral Catholic High School
09:02because Amy's a teacher there, and we all felt she was an immediate danger in that moment.
09:09As I was driving up to the high school,
09:11I placed a phone call to a district attorney, Ramona McCarthy,
09:16and gave her a briefing.
09:21It's very common to have a deputy district attorney pre-assigned to the case.
09:27We can review warrants,
09:29and it's just best practice for everybody to work hand-in-hand from the onset.
09:32As he was giving me information about the homicide,
09:36he was letting me know that the victim may have been the suspect's ex-girlfriend's fiancé.
09:44That immediately triggered me because working in the stalking unit,
09:49I had been working with a stalking victim for months prior who was engaged.
09:55And so I asked the detective,
09:57is her name Amy Gambara that you're going to speak to?
10:00And he said, yes.
10:04I was devastated
10:07when I realized that it was her fiancé, Mario Figuero.
10:13Unbeknownst to me, Ramona knew Amy,
10:17and she knew Mario was Amy's fiancé.
10:20But before she met Mario,
10:23Amy used to date Jesse Alvarez.
10:26But she started picking up on red flags that Jesse was exhibiting,
10:30controlling behavior,
10:32controlling behavior,
10:34manipulating behavior.
10:34So she broke up with him.
10:37So now I'm getting more information about the background
10:40and learning that Amy had attempted to get a restraining order against Jesse Alvarez.
10:45But that day on February 1st, we did not know where he was.
10:50And Amy is vulnerable at the school.
10:53And so the San Diego Police Department ended up surrounding the school and patrolling the school
10:58so that we can assure the students at Cathedral Catholic were safe,
11:02and that Amy was safe.
11:09When I arrived at the school, Amy was seated in the principal's office,
11:13and I told her that Mario had died.
11:20And Amy began screaming and wailing.
11:24She fell to the ground, and she immediately started saying,
11:28Jesse did it, Jesse did it.
11:33We interviewed her at length,
11:34and she described in great detail the plans that her and Mario had to have children.
11:40They were excited about their wedding,
11:42and all of that had just come crashing down.
11:46So she appeared appropriately impacted,
11:48and I felt comfortable that she wasn't involved in this.
11:53Amy told investigators after she ended her relationship with Jesse Alvarez two years prior,
12:00she slowly started to try to distance herself.
12:04But common in these type of domestic violence relationships,
12:09he would not let her go.
12:11She lays out a detailed record of years of stalking since she broke up with Jesse in 2019.
12:19Jesse had been following Amy in San Bernardino, where they both lived at the time.
12:25He was showing up to random places that he should not know that she is there,
12:29and calling her nonstop.
12:31But Amy was trying to put her old life behind her and move on.
12:40Amy really started a new chapter in her life.
12:42So she moved to San Diego.
12:45She got a job as a teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School.
12:49And it was there that she fell in love with a fellow teacher, Mario Fierro.
12:55I asked Amy, tell me about Mario.
12:58What's his background?
12:59What does he do?
13:01She told me he's an alumni at Cathedral Catholic.
13:04He played on the football team.
13:07He's locally rooted.
13:09She talked to me about his parents, his siblings, very strong family man.
13:14He was very liked, very loved.
13:22I just was shocked.
13:23I just didn't, I couldn't believe it.
13:26I remember it like it was yesterday.
13:29Honestly, I just figured there was some sort of mistake.
13:34I had just talked to Mario the night before, planning where we were going to meet up that weekend.
13:41I was in disbelief.
13:43I've known Mario since grade school.
13:46We were just really good friends.
13:48He always had the biggest smile and always was like so alive.
13:53He had a very unique personality.
13:56When Mario was in the room, you definitely knew Mario was in the room.
13:59Mario was always obsessed with sports.
14:00And he always knew that he wanted to be in sports somehow.
14:05And at some point when he decided he wanted to be a teacher and wanted to be a coach,
14:10the only place he wanted to go was Kid Thigero.
14:14I remember when Mario first talked about Amy, because he first told us that he had met this
14:21teacher that was new in town and that she seemed really nice and very cool.
14:27And they began dating in February of 2020.
14:31They were both just so happy.
14:34And then in December of 2020, Mario proposed to Amy.
14:39He was so excited to have a future with her, to get married, to have kids, and to grow old
14:46together.
14:49I remember seeing someone post something that they had heard that Mario had passed.
14:55And I feel like I blacked out.
14:58I didn't want to believe it.
15:03But at that point, you started talking to other friends.
15:07It started to become real.
15:09And then you started realizing what had happened.
15:12Why did this happen?
15:14Who was this person that would have killed him?
15:17How is that possible to want to kill somebody that is such a great human?
15:28I'm a defense attorney and Mario and Amy came to have dinner.
15:33And he had mentioned to me that Amy might have some questions about a restraining order to
15:41prevent her ex from coming close to her or contacting her.
15:45Amy had a lot of concerns that her ex-boyfriend was stalking her.
15:50She was scared and she felt helpless.
15:53She was very hesitant to talk about her past, to even give out her phone number,
15:59to have people post pictures of her on social media.
16:03Amy was very, very frustrated with the system.
16:06So I wanted to make Amy feel better and potentially help her.
16:14It set enough red flags for one of her friends, the defense attorney, to take the initiative to
16:20contact our unit, which specializes in stalking.
16:23So we ended up reaching out to Amy and she said she's been in fear of Jesse, her ex-boyfriend.
16:31He calls her all the time.
16:32Hi, Amy, it's Jesse.
16:34If you could please call or message me back at some point, really appreciate it.
16:38He shows up to places that she's at.
16:41She did try to get a restraining order, but that restraining order had previously been denied.
16:46Because under the California law, stalking requires a threat.
16:51And he never threatened Amy, not directly.
16:55So at the time, we could not criminally charge him with stalking.
16:59But certainly we picked up a lot of red flags that she was the target of his obsession.
17:09Now we need to make sure Amy is safe.
17:12So we had our investigators who specialize in threat assessment,
17:16put her into a confidential location.
17:21Numerous detectives were still trying to locate Jesse Alvarez.
17:24But we didn't know where he was.
17:26And at this point, we were concerned that he may harm someone else.
17:30Stalkers target not only the object of their obsession,
17:34but they hurt them by hurting the people that they love.
17:40Jesse had not been found at that time.
17:42We were scared.
17:44I didn't leave the house that day.
17:45There was just a consensus between all of us.
17:48Hey, lock your doors.
17:50Watch out.
17:51Jesse, to me, just seemed like a shark that was circling and circling
17:56and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
18:13At this point, we're thinking to ourselves, like, you know, Jesse Alvarez was the likely
18:19perpetrator that killed Mario, but we were unable to locate Jesse.
18:28So several investigators are conducting background checks on Jesse Alvarez,
18:33looking for anything that could help us locate him.
18:37When I was interviewing Amy, I asked her, you know,
18:42what connections does Jesse have to San Diego County?
18:45Because she told me that she believed he lived in San Bernardino, in Rancho Cucamonga.
18:50So she told me that his brother, Ryan, lived in San Diego.
18:54That's the only link that she was aware of that Jesse would have to San Diego.
19:01As detectives start to look for Jesse, they start pinging his phone.
19:05They located his phone at an address on Fermé Avenue.
19:10The location was about 10 minutes away from the crime scene.
19:15Sergeant Leahy drives by the 9200 block of Fermé and sees a Volkswagen Golf parked at a residence
19:22there, which we believe may have been used in the crime based on surveillance video.
19:27We quickly run the registration of the vehicle through our computer systems,
19:32and it comes back to a Ryan Alvarez, Jesse Alvarez's brother.
19:39As this is happening, investigators observe family members arriving to the location and going into the house.
19:46Our fear at that point is that the suspect could be inside and he could be getting rid of evidence.
19:52So a decision is made at that point to secure the house and obtain a search warrant.
20:01We had a number of uniformed officers surround the residence.
20:05The occupants inside were directed to exit. The last person to exit the home was Jesse.
20:12And we had already predetermined that as each family member came out of the house,
20:18they were going to be assigned to a detective before any other discussions amongst themselves occur.
20:25All the family members were shocked. However, Jesse wasn't curious as to why he was placed in handcuffs.
20:34He's not asking why any of this is happening. It was rather strange, but probable cause existed
20:41to arrest him. Jesse was transported down to police headquarters.
20:48Jesse's mom, dad and brother Ryan were all interviewed outside of Ryan's house in the detective's vehicles.
20:57All three of them indicated to us that Jesse unannounced left the house early in the morning,
21:03which was inconsistent from his regular routine, and that he borrowed Ryan's car without permission.
21:11Jesse had been living there with his brother Ryan for several weeks, and he told his family that he
21:16had gone hiking in the morning, but he was not wearing hiking clothes and he did not come back
21:20looking like he had exercised. But the family said they did not believe the story that he told about
21:25where he went that morning.
21:29At that point, we know we need to get into the house because we have not located the murder weapon.
21:34So we serve the search warrant and in the garage, investigators find two firearms.
21:40One of the firearms is a rifle and it is concealed in a guitar gun case. The other was a
21:47handgun.
21:49Both the handgun and the rifle were painted white.
21:54The fact that the weapons were painted white was incredibly important to the investigation because
21:59there was a witness that had described the suspect using a white item and placing it to the victim's head.
22:08We also locate several pieces of clothing and items related to Cathedral Catholic High School.
22:17Our suspect, Jesse Alvarez, had no connection to the school.
22:21My thoughts were, Jesse was obtaining all these items in order to go to the school
22:28and essentially camouflage himself.
22:32Jesse not only had the white Glock firearm we believe was used in the murder, but he had a rifle
22:39with extended magazines and a guitar case. He easily could have walked onto that campus with his guitar
22:45case with that rifle in it. This guitar case was not for a guitar, specifically a gun case made to
22:52look
22:52like a guitar case. Based on what we were finding, I'm asking myself if his ultimate plan was to go
22:58to
22:58that high school and either commit mass shooting or target Amy there.
23:14Mario's murder just shook our community. Students were devastated. His colleagues,
23:21friends and family were devastated. When we returned back to the crime scene to do additional investigation,
23:29his students were already in front of his home, flowers out, candles lit.
23:36The football players brought their jerseys, flowers, candles, all to show their respect for their coach.
23:43He was so beloved, not only from his players, but also his students. It really stunned me just seeing
23:49that outpouring of love from the community.
23:58So based on the information that we have so far, we had located items that were indicative that Jesse
24:05Alvarez was trying to camouflage himself and go to Cathedral High School. And now we have a rifle that is
24:11located within a guitar case. So my first thought was, was this suspect planning to conduct a mass shooting at
24:19a school?
24:22So I called Ramona before the interview with Jesse and I asked her, I said, hey, can you ask Amy
24:30to tell me what the hooks are into Jesse? You know, what are things that I can talk to him
24:36about to
24:36ingratiate myself? Amy said Jesse obtained a master's in diplomacy and he was one of those guys that
24:44thought he was smarter than everybody else.
25:01And then he starts to say, well, she may have believed we dated, that she has this histrionic
25:07disorder where she thinks relationships are closer than they are. He was very comfortable lying to these
25:12homicide detectives sitting right in front of him. I will tell you that from what we learned today,
25:18there's a different interpretation of yours and Amy's relationship. When she claims there was a lot
25:23of stalking behavior, you trying to contact her, you jealous about the new fiance. I had no idea that
25:30she was in our relationship. We could see the wheels returning in his head that his story was not flying
25:35with us. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about this house at 9211. You recently moved there.
25:44Who do you live with there? My brother, Ryan. Okay. Do your parents live there as well? No, sir.
25:52They're visiting this weekend. Your mom was interviewed by another homicide
25:55detective. She says, you know what? My son left at 630 this morning. He left in my other son's car
26:00without his permission. No, I was in my car, so that's weird. We told them, hey, your dad says the
26:07same thing. Hey, your brother says the same thing. Everybody agrees you left this morning, took your
26:12brother's car, did not have permission, and we found the white weapons in the garage. And a witness
26:19interviewed at the scene reported seeing one male holding a white object to another male's head.
26:25I've never seen anybody with a white gun. What kind of gun is this white gun? It's a Glock 19.
26:32Why do you want to make your gun white? It's a stupid question, but now I need to know.
26:36I mean, honestly, just because I like Star Wars, and it makes me think of Stormtroopers.
26:42This homicide was perpetrated by a white firearm, and Jesse's firearm was painted white.
26:51At that point, you could see that Jesse was starting to become uncomfortable.
26:56I don't know why it went this way today, but it's Captain Obvious in this room what happened today.
27:02Somehow this got out of hand, right? So just tell me just how it would happen, if you would.
27:11Jesse realizes that in a matter of hours, we had accumulated quite a bit of evidence.
27:20He then recognizes that he's being caught in lies, and now he's going to have to provide
27:24an explanation to us.
27:26I guess I'm just, you know, a little confused and scared of just like, you know.
27:32What's next?
27:33Yeah. I guess I'm just curious though, like, like you,
27:37you talked about, you know, like legal proceedings and what have you, and I'm just.
27:42And then he slowly started to lay it out what happened. Jesse admitted that he drove down there,
27:49his intentions were to speak with Mario because he believed he was mistreating Amy.
27:57Like you're telling me they're engaged, I did not know that.
28:00But yeah, I did care about her, her well-being. She had a lot of really toxic relationships when
28:06I first met her. And at times I'd seen her like, you know, just very drunk and drugged or,
28:12you know, being abused and what have you. And I just thought, well, you know, it's a Monday morning.
28:20I could probably catch him on his way to work.
28:24Jesse admits that he approaches Mario at the back of the car. And Jesse says that he fears for his
28:29safety and that Mario starts grabbing onto him.
28:36He was actually grabbing me and, and, and yeah, holding onto me and like, you know,
28:44like clenching me really hard and stuff. And, and I, I pushed him away. And then I did draw,
28:53you know, and I just shot like, he didn't stop. Like he just continued to lunge at me.
29:00I shot again, like, again, like this was all very fast. That's why I kind of just kept firing
29:05kind of aimlessly because I, I really was afraid for my safety and he just wouldn't stop.
29:13It made no sense. He admitted he shot Mario six times, but he never described any actual threat
29:20that Mario presented. He said that Mario got angry, said he was going to kick his ass,
29:25something to that effect. And then he empties, you know, numerous rounds into the head and face.
29:30That's not self-defense.
29:33There's nothing that we take more serious than the loss of a human being.
29:37Oh, absolutely.
29:38With that being said, tonight you are under arrest for murder.
29:43Jesse's booked into jail and we charged him with one count of first degree murder.
29:50In our analysis, it was obvious to us that this was a first degree murder.
29:54Having Jesse in custody was only the first piece of solving this case.
29:58We knew that Jesse was going to go to trial for this murder and that his defense would be self
30:03-defense.
30:04But the motive all pointed to the stalking activity. And I believe that this was a callous plan to kill
30:10without any remorse. So we needed to prove that Jesse premeditated the murder of Mario Fierro.
30:28So at this point we had a confession from Jesse, but it was based on a claim that it was
30:33self-defense.
30:33So we needed to collect as much evidence as possible to build a case against him for the murder of
30:39Mario Fierro.
30:40We met as an investigative team with District Attorney Ramona McCarthy.
30:45And we identified what are the things we need to do to establish that it was premeditated.
30:51I did a Google warrant. So any of his devices that are linked via a Gmail will automatically back up.
30:58So you'll get replicated digital evidence on those. So this thing was just beginning.
31:02That Google return really gave us insight into a mind of a stalker.
31:10For months he would go online and he started adding as many friends and family of Amy's as he could.
31:18He would send them private messages. Hey, Amy and I, you know, we've lost contact. Do you have
31:24her updated phone number? He was truly obsessively stalking Amy.
31:29We learned that Jesse was following over 470 social media accounts that were associated to the
31:35high school. And what we also came to learn is that he learned of the engagement through a public
31:40Facebook posting that Cathedral Catholic High School had generated announcing and celebrating
31:47the engagement between Amy and Mario. The love of his life, Amy, his ex-girlfriend is now engaged to
31:54Mario Fierro. And from that point, we believe he shifted his focus to stalking Mario. Within hours of
32:04that posting coming out, Jesse began conducting numerous Google searches and going to paid websites
32:10to try to identify who Mario Fierro was, where he lived, what cars he drove. He starts looking up how
32:17to
32:17shoot and kill somebody. He looks up self-defense, how busy the San Diego police are. Do they track your
32:23cell phone, which explains why he didn't bring his phone to the crime scene. And he looks up, does a
32:29shot to the head, kill. Jesse was enraged to the point that he could not stop himself.
32:36Towards the end of 2020, while researching how he was going to murder Mario,
32:42he was posting social media posts claiming to be a student at Cathedral Catholic High School.
32:49He would go on campus talking to other students and other faculty claiming that he was an alumni
32:55at the school, trying to now get a job to be a teacher. We had no idea he was on
33:03campus in the
33:04weeks prior to Mario's murder, taking hundreds of photographs of the campus, essentially a blueprint
33:11of the campus. And also specifically focusing inside Amy's classroom. And Amy was completely vulnerable.
33:20When I heard about that after the fact, that was terrifying, frankly.
33:24It was on another level. I just couldn't fathom
33:28someone going to that length with his activities at the school. Just shocking, honestly.
33:36The first time he applied to get a job at Cathedral Catholic High School, he got an interview. We could
33:43figure out through Jesse's computer information, Google information, tracking his cell phone, that
33:49four days after he had that interview, he purchased a rifle and a nine millimeter Glock.
33:56On his phone, there were pictures of Jesse that he has of himself training in the desert to shoot.
34:02And he was going to a gun training center located in northern San Diego to practice for weeks on end
34:08to
34:08obtain certificates for firearms usage. For weeks, he was constantly at the range, firing his gun and
34:17learning to shoot. And the last thing he researched the night before he murdered Mario was how to shoot
34:25a gun without flinching. It gave us a pretty clear understanding that this murder was not sudden, that
34:34it was planned, that it was premeditated, and that he spent a lot of time thinking and researching what
34:41he was going to do. The other thing we noted that during his search is he knew when Cathedral High
34:46School was going back to school, the first day after COVID. So he waited out there knowing that
34:51Mario was going to leave to go teach at school and would be coming out to his car.
34:57As I was reviewing the evidence, it became crystal clear to me that his plan was to murder Mario.
35:03Because he was the person he believed was responsible for taking away his prior girlfriend.
35:14The plan started in 2019. Jesse started stalking Amy after she broke up with him,
35:23and he became fixated on her. For months, Jesse was stalking Amy, calling her nonstop,
35:29following her, showing up to random places. He's not taking no for an answer.
35:34When he sees Amy and Mario's engagement announcement on social media,
35:41Jesse's jealousy consumed him. So the next day, on December 22nd, Jesse starts to conduct
35:49computer searches of Amy and Mario Fierro. One of the searches that Jesse conducted was how to kill
35:58your ex's fiancee. Based on what we located at the residence, we believe Jesse was planning to go to
36:06the high school to target Amy there. He went online and started applying for faculty positions at
36:11Cathedral Catholic High School, where Amy was a teacher. Then Jesse began tracking down Mario's address
36:19and mapping the area. In January, he purchased two firearms, a 9mm Glock and a rifle.
36:25Next, Jesse took shooting lessons at a pistol range. Then he began stalking Mario, closely watching his
36:33daily routines. And the planning continued as he researched how not to leave evidence behind.
36:39Jesse knew the first day back to school after the COVID lockdown would be the perfect opportunity to
36:45enact his plan. That morning, Jesse woke up early, and to prevent his own car from being linked to the
36:51crime. He borrowed his brother's car and drove it to North Park. Jesse waited in his car right in front
36:58of Mario's
36:59complex for almost an hour for Mario to exit his apartment. Mario opened the trunk of his car, and
37:08that's when Jesse began shooting. He shoots him numerous times, made sure he was dead, and then he escaped in
37:15his
37:15brother's car, and he returned home.
37:21This was a cold-blooded, premeditated murder. And it was voluminous in terms of evidence.
37:28We just hope the jury tracks with us at the trial.
37:39I went to the trial, and it was surreal to watch Jesse and his demeanor. It validated the depth of
37:49Jesse's obsession.
37:50In court, Jesse was so persistent and determined to speak with Amy that he was trying to pass notes
37:57to Amy or at least get her attention. Like, he still thought there was a chance, to the point that
38:02his
38:02attorneys had to calm him down.
38:05Amy was already feeling very let down by the system. She had tried to get a restraining order, and it
38:13didn't work.
38:15Mario was shot and killed, and she knew Jesse was never going to give up.
38:22I got the sense that she had lost hope that anybody would stop Jesse.
38:36The entire trial was the Jesse Alvarez show. There was a lot of theatrics. He was using
38:43a cane. He couldn't even lift his head up. Jesse really thought he could pull one over on the jury.
38:51Oh my gosh, like, these are some really weird search.
38:53It was very difficult to be in the court. To me, it's hard to even give that person a name.
39:02My sister and I couldn't look at him, but we wanted to. We wanted to see
39:08what kind of person would do this.
39:16I have never had a case with such a wealth of evidence demonstrating premeditation.
39:23However, the defense was that Jesse acted in self-defense. But before the trial started,
39:31we received an audio recording from that surveillance footage of the shots fired that killed Mario.
39:39That audio was very significant at trial because you could hear the cadence of those shots.
39:50Those shots sound methodical. Those shots were done with a purpose.
39:57There's a shot, a long pause, and then several shots to the head.
40:05There's a shot. When you listen to that audio, it is so incredibly eerie.
40:10It made it crystal clear this was not an act of self-defense. This was a meticulously plotted
40:16execution of Mario.
40:21In my 15 years as a homicide investigator, I have never seen a case that showed more premeditation,
40:27more planning, and unwavering commitment to commit a murder. Jesse had several opportunities to back out of
40:36this, but he chose to go to Mario's house, locate him, and gun him down in his driveway.
40:41The sitting and waiting outside of Mario's house to then execute him, to me, shows
40:49that he's just a cold-blooded killer. This was the first homicide case I had
40:56working with a stalking victim. So it personally hit me very hard. I really wanted to ensure
41:04justice was going to be had and that Jesse can never do this again.
41:14Burnout count one, we the jury in the above entitled cause find the defendant, Jesse Milton Alvarez,
41:21guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.
41:26Jesse was convicted of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait,
41:32along with the allegation of using a firearm during the commission of that murder.
41:36He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 25 years to life.
41:46I'm glad justice was served,
41:51but none of this is bringing my friend back.
41:54There was a memorial at Cathedral for Mario on the football field. It was a lot of Mario's close
42:00friends and family, the faculty, and it was an opportunity for, you know, people to come together and grieve.
42:08What gets me when I think about losing Mario
42:10Mario was the memories that were going to come. The future that he had. He was so into molding
42:18the youth and being a teacher. He was super excited to be a dad. He was going to be great
42:24in this next phase of life, and that was just robbed from him.
42:31I'm happy to be a child.
42:33I'm happy to be a child.
42:34I'm happy to be a child.
42:34You
Comments