- 2 weeks ago
A Plan to Kill S02E02 Killer Competition
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TVTranscript
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.
00:46The San Diego Police Department ended up surrounding the school so that we can ensure the students were safe.
00:53We were scared. I didn't leave the house that day.
00:56He was watching, waiting, and it was clear that this murder was premeditated.
01:27San Diego 911.
01:29I was driving away, and I saw the men are fighting.
01:34San Diego 911.
01:36I heard, like, gunshots outside. I heard somebody wailing.
01:39How many shots did he hear?
01:42I found it possibly, like, five.
01:45I heard a car driving away.
01:47And 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.
02:28But right on the sidewalk, you see a man lying in 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
02:55that appeared to be the same person that was deceased on the sidewalk.
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 and approached him as he was loading up his golf bag into the trunk of the Mini
03:41Cooper.
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 as the
04:41commotion 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 that
05:13appeared 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, because as the investigation evolves,
05:35that's one piece that we're either going to have to explain or we're going to have to figure out the
05:40discrepancy.
05:43At this point, detectives, they are also looking for any type of cameras, anything 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, we 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 six 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.
06:57He showed me his badge, and then he proceeded to ask me the identity of the decedent.
07:03And then he began to tell me that he was cousins with a female named Amy Gambara,
07:09and that Amy had called him.
07:13She said that her fiancé, Mario, had not shown up to work,
07:17and 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 named Jesse Alvarez, who had a connection to the victim,
08:00and 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.
08:12She was scared, and she felt helpless.
08:15He tells us she has this histrionic disorder where she thinks relationships
08:19are 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.
08:27He 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,
08:48we learned that Mario's fiancé, Amy Gambara, was 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, I placed a phone call to a district attorney,
09:14Ramona McCarthy, and 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, and 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, he was letting me know that the victim may have been
09:40the suspect's ex-girlfriend's fiancé.
09:44That immediately triggered me because working in the stalking unit, I had been working with a stalking victim for months
09:52prior who was engaged.
09:55And so I asked the detective, is her name, Amy Gambara, that you're going to speak to?
10:00And he said, yes.
10:04I was devastated when I realized that it was her fiancé, Mario Figuero.
10:13Unbeknownst to me, Ramona knew Amy, and she knew Mario was Amy's fiancé.
10:20But before she met Mario, Amy used to date Jesse Alvarez.
10:26But she started picking up on red flags that Jesse was exhibiting.
10:31Controlling behavior, manipulating behavior.
10:35So she broke up with him.
10:37So now I'm getting more information about the background and learning that Amy had attempted to get a restraining order
10:44against 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 and that Amy was safe.
11:09When I arrived at the school, Amy was seated in the principal's office.
11:14And I told her that Mario had died.
11:20And Amy began screaming and wailing.
11:24She fell to the ground.
11:25And she immediately started saying, Jesse 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.
11:41They were excited about their wedding.
11:43And all of that had just come crashing down.
11:46So she appeared appropriately impacted.
11:49And 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, she slowly started to
12:02try to distance herself.
12:04But common in these type of domestic violence relationships, he 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 and calling her non
12:30-stop.
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.
12:44She 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.
13:21I 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.
13:40I 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.
13:55When Mario was in the room, you definitely knew Mario was in the room.
13:59Mario was always obsessed with sports and 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 Cathedral.
14:14I remember when Mario first talked about Amy because he first told us that he had met this teacher
14:22that was new in town and that she seemed really nice and very cool.
14:28And they began dating in February of 2020.
14:30They 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. I didn't want to believe it.
15:03But at that point, you started talking to other friends.
15:07It started to become real. And then you started realizing what had happened.
15:12Why did this happen? Who 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
15:40to prevent her ex from coming close to her or contacting her.
15:44Amy had a lot of concerns that her ex-boyfriend was stalking her.
15:50She was scared and she felt helpless.
15:52She was very hesitant to talk about her past,
15:56to 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.
16:14It set enough red flags for one of her friends, a defense attorney, to take the initiative to contact
16:20our unit, which specializes in stalking. So we ended up reaching out to Amy. And she said she's been in
16:28fear of
16:29Jesse, her ex-boyfriend. He calls her all the time.
16:32Hi, Amy. It's Jesse. If you could please call or message me back at some point. Really appreciate it.
16:38He shows up to places that she's at. She did try to get a restraining order,
16:43but that restraining order had previously been denied. Because under the California law,
16:48stalking requires a threat. And he never threatened Amy, not directly. So at the time,
16:57we could not criminally charge him with stalking. But certainly we picked up a lot of red flags,
17:02that she was the target of his obsession.
17:09Now, we need to make sure Amy is safe. So we had our investigators who specialize in threat
17:15assessment put her into a confidential location.
17:21Numerous detectives were still trying to locate Jesse Alvarez, but we didn't know where he was.
17:27And at this point, we were concerned that he may harm someone else.
17:30Stalkers target not only the object of their obsession, but they hurt them by hurting the
17:35people that they love.
17:40Jesse had not been found at that time. We were scared. I didn't leave the house that day.
17:45There was just a consensus between all of us. Hey, lock your doors. Watch out. Jesse, to me,
17:52just seemed like a shark that was circling and circling and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
18:03To be continued...
18:13At this point, we're thinking to ourselves like, you know, Jesse Alvarez was the likely perpetrator
18:19that killed Mario. But we were unable to locate Jesse.
18:28So several investigators are conducting background checks on Jesse Alvarez, looking for anything that
18:34could help us locate him. When I was interviewing Amy, I asked her, you know, what connections does Jesse
18:43have to San Diego County? Because she told me that she believed he lived in San Bernardino,
18:48in Rancho Cucamonga. So she told me that his brother, Ryan, lived in San Diego. That's the only link
18:56that she was aware of that Jesse would have to San Diego.
19:01As detectives start to look for Jesse, they start pinging his phone. They located his phone
19:07at an address on Fermi Avenue. The location was about 10 minutes away from the crime scene.
19:15Sergeant Leahy drives by the 9200 block of Fermi and sees a Volkswagen Golf parked at a residence there,
19:23which 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
19:46house. Our fear at that point is that the suspect could be inside and he could be getting rid of
19:51evidence. So 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. The occupants inside were directed to
20:08exit. The last person to exit the home was Jesse, and we had already predetermined that as each family
20:16member came out of the house, they were going to be assigned to a detective before any other discussions
20:23amongst themselves occur. All the family members were shocked. However, Jesse wasn't curious as to why
20:32he was placed in handcuffs. He's not asking why any of this is happening. It was rather strange,
20:39but probable cause existed at this point to arrest him. So Jesse was transported down to police
20:46headquarters. Jesse's mom, dad, and brother Ryan were all interviewed outside of Ryan's house in the
20:55detective's vehicles. All three of them indicated to us that Jesse unannounced left the house early in the
21:03morning, which was inconsistent from his regular routine, and that he borrowed Ryan's car without
21:08permission. Jesse had been living there with his brother Ryan for several weeks, and he told his family
21:15that he had gone hiking in the morning, but he was not wearing hiking clothes, and he did not come
21:19back
21:20looking like he had exercised. But the family said they did not believe the story that he told about where
21:25he went that morning. At that point, we know we need to get into the house because we have not
21:33located
21:33the murder weapon. So 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. Both the
21:50handgun and the rifle were painted white. The fact that the weapons were painted white was incredibly
21:57important to the investigation because there was a witness that had described the suspect using a white
22:03item and placing it to the victim's head. We also locate several pieces of clothing and items related to
22:15cathedral catholic high school. Our 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 and essentially
22:29camouflage himself. Jesse not only had the white Glock firearm we believe was used in the murder,
22:37but he had a rifle with extended magazines and a guitar case. He easily could have walked onto that
22:43campus with his guitar case with that rifle in it. This guitar case was not for a guitar, specifically
22:49a gun case made to look like a guitar case. Based on what we were finding, I'm asking myself if
22:56his
22:56ultimate plan was to go to that high school and either commit mass shooting or target Amy there.
23:14Mario's murder just shook our community. Students were devastated. His colleagues, friends, and family were devastated.
23:24When we returned back to the crime scene to do additional investigation, his students were already
23:30in 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,
23:48just seeing that 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 Alvarez
24:06was trying to camouflage himself and go to Cathedral High School. And now we have a rifle that is located
24:12within a guitar case. So my first thought was, was this suspect planning to conduct a mass shooting at a
24:19school?
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
24:36to ingratiate myself? Amy said Jesse obtained a master's in diplomacy and he was one of those guys
24:44that thought 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 disorder
25:08where she thinks relationships are closer than they are. He was very comfortable lying to these
25:12two homicide detectives sitting right in front of him.
25:15I will tell you that from what we learned today, there's a different interpretation of
25:20yours and Amy's relationship. She claims there was a lot of stalking behavior, you trying to contact
25:26her. Are you jealous about the new fiancee? I had no idea that she was in our relationship.
25:32We could see the wheels returning in his head that his story was not flying with us.
25:37Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about this house at 92-11.
25:42You recently moved there. Who do you live with there?
25:46My brother Ryan. Okay. Do your parents live there as well? No, sir. They're visiting this weekend.
25:53Your mom was interviewed by another homicide detective. She says, you know what? My son left
25:57at 6.30 this morning. He left in my other son's car without his permission. No, I was in my
26:03car,
26:04so that's weird. We told them, hey, your dad says the same thing. Hey, your brother says the same thing.
26:09Everybody agrees you left this morning, took your brother's car, did not have permission,
26:14and we found the white weapons in the garage. And a witness interviewed at the scene reported seeing
26:21one male holding a white object to another male's head. I've never seen anybody with a white gun.
26:27What kind of gun is this white gun? It's a Glock 19. Why do you want to make your gun
26:32white?
26:33It's a stupid question, but now I need to know. I mean, honestly, just because I like Star Wars and
26:39it makes me think of storm trippers. Oh, yeah. This homicide was perpetrated by a white firearm,
26:46and Jesse's firearm was painted white. At that point, you could see that Jesse was starting to
26:54become uncomfortable. I don't know why it went this way today, but it's Captain Obvious in this
27:00room what happened today. That somehow this got out of hand, right? So just tell me just how,
27:06what happened, if you would. Jesse realizes that in a matter of hours,
27:17we had accumulated quite a bit of evidence. He then recognizes that he's being caught in lies,
27:23and now he's gonna have to provide an 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, you talked about, you know,
27:39like legal proceedings and court 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 talking about 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, you
28:12know,
28:13being abused and what have you. And I just thought, well, you know, it's a Monday morning.
28:19I could probably catch him on his way to work.
28:23Jesse admits that he approaches Mario at the back of the car.
28:27And Jesse says that he fears for his safety and that Mario starts grabbing onto him.
28:36He was actually grabbing me and, and, and yeah, holding onto me and like, you know, like,
28:44clenching 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.
28:59I shot again, like, again, like this was all very fast. That's why I kind of just kept firing kind
29:05of 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.
29:37With 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.
30:27So at this point, we had a confession from Jesse, but it was based on a claim that it was
30:32self-defense.
30:33So we needed to collect as much evidence as possible to build a case against him for the murder of
30:39Mario
30:39Fierro. We met as an investigative team with District Attorney Ramona McCarthy, and we identified what
30:46are the things we need to do to establish that that 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
31:17could. He would send them private messages. Hey, Amy and I, you know, we've lost contact.
31:23Do you have her 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
31:35the high 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,
31:53is now engaged to Mario Fierro. And from that point, we believe he shifted his focus to stalking Mario.
32:02Within hours of that posting coming out, Jesse began conducting numerous Google searches and going
32:09to paid websites to try to identify who Mario Fierro was, where he lived, what cars he drove.
32:15He starts looking up how to shoot and kill somebody. He looks up self-defense, how busy the San
32:21Eagle police are, do they track your cell phone, which explains why he didn't bring his phone to
32:26the crime scene. And he looks up, does a shot to the head, kill. Jesse was enraged to the point
32:33that he
32:34could not stop himself. Towards the end of 2020, while researching how he was going to murder Mario,
32:41he was posting social media posts, claiming to be a student at Cathedral Catholic High School. He would
32:49go on campus, talking to other students and other faculty, claiming that he was an alumni at the school,
32:56trying to now get a job to be a teacher. We had no idea he was on campus in the
33:04weeks prior to Mario's
33:06murder, taking hundreds of photographs of the campus, essentially a blueprint of the campus,
33:12and 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. It was on another level.
33:25I just couldn't fathom someone going to that length with his activities at the school.
33:32Just shocking, honestly. The first time he applied to get a job at Cathedral Catholic High School,
33:40he got an interview. We could figure out through Jesse's computer information,
33:47Google information, tracking his cell phone, that four days after he had that interview,
33:52he purchased a rifle and a nine millimeter Glock. On his phone, there were pictures of Jesse that he
33:59has of himself training in the desert to shoot. And he was going to a gun training center located in
34:05northern San Diego to practice for weeks on end to obtain certificates for firearms usage.
34:12For weeks, he was constantly at the range firing his gun and learning to shoot. And the last thing he
34:20researched the night before he murdered Mario was how to shoot a gun without flinching.
34:27It gave us a pretty clear understanding that this murder was not sudden, that it was planned,
34:35that it was premeditated, and that he spent a lot of time thinking and researching what he was going to
34:41do.
34:42The other thing we noted that during his search is he knew when Cathedral High School was going back
34:46to school, the first day after COVID. So he waited out there knowing that Mario was going to leave to
34:53go
34:53teach at school and would be coming out to his car. As I was reviewing the evidence, it became crystal
35:00clear to me that his plan was to murder Mario. Because he was the person he believed was responsible
35:06for taking away his prior girlfriend. The plan started in 2019. Jesse started stalking Amy after
35:21she broke up with him and he became fixated on her. For months, Jesse was stalking Amy. Calling her
35:28nonstop, following 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, Jesse's jealousy consumed him.
35:43So the next day, on December 22nd, Jesse starts to conduct computer searches of Amy and Mario Fierro.
35:54One of the searches that Jesse conducted was how to kill your ex's fiancé. Based on what we located at
36:02the residence, we believe Jesse was planning to go to the high school to target Amy there. He went online
36:09and started applying for faculty positions at Cathedral Catholic High School, where Amy was a teacher.
36:16Then Jesse began tracking down Mario's address and mapping the area. In January,
36:21he purchased two firearms, a 9mm Glock and a rifle. Next, Jesse took shooting lessons at a pistol range.
36:30Then he began stalking Mario, closely watching his daily routines. And the planning continued as he
36:36researched how not to leave evidence behind. Jesse knew the first day back to school after the COVID
36:42lockdown would be the perfect opportunity to enact his plan. That morning, Jesse woke up early and to
36:49prevent his own car from being linked to the crime. He borrowed his brother's car and drove it to North
36:54Park. Jesse waited in his car right in front of Mario's complex for almost an hour. For Mario to exit
37:03his
37:04apartment, Mario opened the trunk of his car, and that's when Jesse began shooting. He shoots him numerous
37:11times, made sure he was dead, and then he escaped in his brother'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.
37:38I went to the trial, and it was surreal to watch Jesse and his demeanor. It validated the depth of
37:49Jesse's obsession. In court, Jesse was so persistent and determined to speak with Amy that he was trying
37:56to pass notes to Amy or at least get her attention. Like, he still thought there was a chance to
38:01the
38:02point that his attorneys had to calm him down. Amy was already feeling very let down by the system.
38:10She had tried to get a restraining order, and it didn't work. Mario was shot and killed, and she knew
38:19Jesse was never going to give up. I got the sense that she had lost hope that anybody would stop
38:27Jesse.
38:36The entire trial was the Jesse Alvarez show. There was a lot of theatrics. He was using a cane. He
38:48really thought he could pull one over on the jury. Oh 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. However,
39:24the defense was that Jesse acted in self-defense. But before the trial started, we received an audio
39:33recording 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.
40:05When you listen to that audio, it is so incredibly eerie. It made it crystal clear this was not an
40:13act of
40:13self-defense. This was a meticulously plotted execution 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
40:36out of this, but he chose to go to Mario's house, locate him, and gun him down in his driveway.
40:41This sitting and waiting outside of Mario's house to then execute him to me shows that he's just a
40:50cold-blooded killer. This was the first homicide case I had working with a stalking victim. So it
41:01personally hit me very hard. I really wanted to ensure justice was going to be had and that Jesse
41:07can never do this again.
41:14Burdick count one, we the jury in the above entitled cause when 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 along with
41:33the allegation of using a firearm during the commission of that murder. He was sentenced to
41:38life without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 25 years to life.
41:46I'm glad justice was served, but 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 people to come together and grieve.
42:08What gets me when I think about losing Mario was the memories that were going to come, the future
42:14that he had. He was so into molding the youth and being a teacher. He was super excited to be
42:22a dad.
42:23He was going to be great in this next phase of life and that was just robbed from him.
42:32He was glad to be with them.
42:34Gracias.
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