- 5 hours ago
A Plan to Kill - Season 2 - Episode 02: Killer Competition
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.
00:46The 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.
01:27Sandy, you going 911?
01:29I was driving away, and I saw the men are fighting.
01:34Sandy, you going 911?
01:35I heard, like, gunshots outside. I heard somebody wailing.
01:39How many shots did you hear?
01:42I found it possibly, like, five.
01:45I 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.
02:12When 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 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.
03:44North Park is generally a safe community.
03:47There 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 and try
04:19and 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, this drew a lot
04:29of 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 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, and the
04:56individual 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.
05:06She continues to drive, and then she sees that our now suspect is taking off in a vehicle that appeared
05:13to her to be a hatchback and driving northbound on Kansas Street.
05:17I remember actually asking her several times as she was sure about what she had observed, and she was adamant
05:25that it was a white object.
05:28And as an investigator, that's a key piece of information, because as the investigation evolves, that's one piece that we're
05:37either going to have to explain or we're going to have to figure out the discrepancy.
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, we located one surveillance camera that captured the suspect
06:00vehicle as it fled the scene.
06:01As we reviewed the surveillance footage, we observed a dark blue Volkswagen, like Jetta-style car was 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, and that same vehicle arrived at about six o
06:33'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, and that Amy
07:12had called him.
07:13She said that her fiancé, Mario, had not shown up to work, and asked him to go by Mario's house
07:20to see if he was okay.
07:26He says, my cousin, Amy, she works at Cathedral High School, and her fiancé, Mario, was working there as a
07:32teacher 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, so 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, and who also had a possible
08:01motive.
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 where 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 elicit now.
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 because Amy's a teacher there,
09:05and we all felt she was in immediate danger in that moment.
09:09As I was driving up to the high school, I placed a phone call to a district attorney, Ramona McCarthy,
09:15and 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,
09:48I had been working with a stalking victim for months prior 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 Fierro.
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.
10:25But 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 ensure 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, and I told her that Mario had
11:17died.
11:20And Amy began screaming and wailing.
11:24She fell to the ground, and she immediately started saying, Jesse did it, Jesse did it.
11:33We interviewed her at length, and she described in great detail the plans that her and Mario had to have
11:40children.
11:40They were excited about their wedding, and all of that had just come crashing down.
11:46So she appeared appropriately impacted, and 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 try to
12:03distance 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 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.
12:44She 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.
13:08She 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.
13:45We 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.
13:58Mario was always obsessed with sports, and he always knew that he wanted to be in sports somehow.
14:05At some point when he decided he wanted to be a teacher and wanted to be a coach, the only
14:10place he wanted to go was Kid Thierro.
14:14I remember when Mario first talked about Amy, because he first told us that he had met this teacher that
14:22was 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.
14:33And 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, and I feel like I blacked
14:58out.
14:59I didn't want to believe it, but 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?
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, and he had mentioned to me that Amy
15:37might have some questions about a restraining order to prevent her ex from coming close to her or contacting her.
15:45Amy had a lot of concerns that her ex-boyfriend was stalking her.
15:49She was scared, and she felt helpless.
15:52She was very hesitant to talk about her past, to even give out her phone number, to have people post
16:00pictures of her on social media.
16:03Amy was very, very frustrated with the system, so I wanted to make Amy feel better and potentially help her.
16:14It set enough red flags for one of her friends, a defense attorney, to take the initiative to contact our
16:21unit, 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. 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.
16:41She did try to get a restraining order, but that restraining order had previously been denied, because under the California
16:48law, 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, but certainly we picked up a lot of
17:01red 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 put her into a confidential location.
17:21Numerous detectives were still trying to locate Jesse Alvarez, but we didn't know where he was.
17:26And 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 people that they love.
17:40Jesse had not been found at that time.
17:42We were scared. I didn't leave the house that day.
17:45There was just a consensus between all of us.
17:48Hey, lock your doors. Watch out.
17:51Jesse, to me, just seemed like a shark that was circling and circling and waiting for the perfect moment to
17:58strike.
18:13at this point we're thinking 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
18:33for anything that could help us locate him when i was interviewing amy i asked her you know
18:41what connections does jesse have to san diego county because she told me that she believed
18:47he lived in san bernardino in rancho cucamonga so she told me that his brother ryan lived in san
18:53diego that'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 they located his phone at an
19:07address on fermet avenue the location was about 10 minutes away from the crime scene sergeant
19:15leahy drives by the 9200 block of fermet and sees a volkswagen gulf parked at a residence there
19:22which we believe may have been used in the crime based on surveillance video we quickly run the
19:29registration of the vehicle through our computer systems and it comes back to a ryan alvarez
19:35jesse alvarez's brother
19:39as this is happening investigators observe family members arriving to the location and going into the
19:45house 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 he was
20:32placed in handcuffs he's not asking why any of this is happening it was rather strange but probable cause
20:41existed at this point to arrest him so jesse was transported down to police headquarters
20:49jesse's mom dad and brother ryan were all interviewed outside of ryan's house in the detectives vehicles
20:56all 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
21:19looking like he had exercised but the family said they did not believe the story that he told about
21:25where he went that morning at that point we know we need to get into the house because we have
21:32not
21:32located the 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
21:48both the handgun and the rifle were painted white the fact that the weapons were painted white was
21:56incredibly important to the investigation because there was a witness that had described the suspect
22:02using a white item and placing it to the victim's head we also locate several pieces of clothing
22:12and items related to cathedral catholic high school our suspect jesse alvarez had no connection to the
22:20school my thoughts weren't jesse was obtaining all these items in order to go to the school
22:28and essentially camouflage himself jesse not only had the white glock firearm we believe was used in
22:37the murder but he had a rifle with extended magazines in a guitar case he easily could have walked onto
22:43that
22:43campus with his guitar case with that rifle in it this guitar case was not for a guitar specifically a
22:50gun
22:51case made to look like a guitar case based on what we were finding i'm asking myself if his ultimate
22:57plan
22:57was 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
23:22were devastated when we returned back to the crime scene to do additional investigation his students
23:29were already in front of his home flowers out candles lit
23:35the 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
24:05alvarez was trying to camouflage himself and go to cathedral high school and now we have a rifle that
24:11is located within a guitar case so my first thought was was this suspect planning to conduct a mass shooting
24:19out of school so i called ramona before the interview with jesse and i asked her i said hey can
24:28you
24:28ask amy to tell me what the hooks are into jesse you know what are things that i can talk
24:35to him about
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 i won't beat around the bush did you date a girl named
24:52amy we were friends okay but we did not date she expressed romantic interest to me but i always said
25:00no i just want to keep this friends and then he starts to say well she may have believed we
25:05dated
25:05that she has this histrionic disorder where she thinks relationships are closer than they are
25:10he was very comfortable lying to these two 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 yours and
25:20amy's relationship when she claims there was a lot of stalking behavior you trying to contact her
25:26you jealous about the new fiancee i had no idea that she was in our relationship we could see the
25:33wheels
25:33were turning in his head that his story was not flying with us let's switch gears a little bit and
25:38talk
25:38about this house at 92 11. you recently moved there who do you live with there my brother ryan okay
25:48do
25:49your parents live there as well no sir they're visiting this weekend your mom was interviewed by another
25:55homicide detective she says you know what my son left at 6 30 this morning he left in my other
26:00son's
26:00car without his permission no i was in my car so that's weird we told them hey your dad says
26:07the same
26:07thing hey your brother says the same thing everybody agrees you left this morning took your brother's
26:12car did not have permission and we found the white weapons in the garage and a witness interviewed at
26:20the scene reported seeing one male holding a white object to another male's head i've never seen anybody
26:26with a white gun what kind of gun is this white gun it's uh glock 19. why do you want
26:32to make your
26:32gun white it's a stupid question but now i need it on i mean honestly just because i like star
26:39wars and
26:39it makes me think of stormtroopers this homicide was perpetrated by a white firearm and jesse's firearm
26:48was painted white at that point you could see that jesse was starting to become uncomfortable i don't
26:56know why it went this way today but it's captain obvious in this room what happened today that somehow
27:02this got out of hand right so just tell me from just how what happened if you would
27:11you know jesse 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 gonna have to provide an explanation to
27:25us i guess i'm just you know a little confused and scared of just like you know what's next yeah
27:33i guess
27:34i'm just curious though like like you you talked about you know like legal proceedings and quora what
27:40have you and i'm just and then he slowly started to lay it out what happened jesse admitted that he
27:48drove down there his intentions were to speak with mario because he believed he was mistreating amy
27:56like you're telling me they're engaged i did not know that but
28:01yeah i did care about her her well-being she had a lot of really toxic relationships when i first
28:07met
28:07her and at times i'd seen her like you know just very drunk and drugged or you know being abused
28:13and
28:13what have you and i just thought well you know it's a monday morning i could probably catch him on
28:21his
28:21way to work jesse admits that he approaches mario at the back of the car and jesse says that he
28:29fears
28:29for his safety and that mario starts grabbing onto him he was actually grabbing me and and and yeah
28:41holding on to me and like you know like clenching me really hard and stuff and and i i pushed
28:48him away
28:49and then i did draw you know and i just shot like he didn't stop like he just continued to
28:59lunge at me
28:59i've shot again like again like this was all very fast that's why i kind of just kept firing kind
29:05of
29:05aimlessly yeah because i i really was afraid for my safety and he just wouldn't stop it made no sense
29:14he admitted he shot mario six times but he never described any actual threat that mario presented
29:21he said that mario got angry said he was going to kick his ass something to that effect and then
29:27he
29:27empties you know numerous rounds into the head and face that's not self-defense
29:33there's nothing that we take more serious than the loss of a human being with that being said
29:40tonight you are under arrest or murder jesse's booked into jail and we charged him with one count
29:47of first degree murder in 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 we knew that jesse was going to
30:00go to trial for this murder and that his defense would be self-defense but the motive all pointed to
30:05the stalking activity and i believe that this was a callous plan to kill without any remorse so we needed
30:13to 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
30:38murder of mario fierro we met as an investigative team with district attorney ramona mccarthy and we
30:45identified what are the things we need to do to establish that that was premeditated i did a google
30:52warrant so any of his devices that are linked via a gmail will automatically back up so you'll get
30:58replicated digital evidence on those so this thing was just beginning that google return really gave
31:05us insight into a mind of a stalker for months he would go online and he started adding as many
31:15friends
31:15and family of amy's as he could he would send them private messages hey amy and i you know we've
31:22lost
31:23contact do you have her updated phone number he was truly obsessively stalking amy we learned that
31:30jesse was following over 470 social media accounts that were associated to the high school and what we
31:36also came to learn is that he learned of the engagement through a public facebook posting that
31:42cathedral catholic high school had generated announcing and celebrating the engagement between amy and mario
31:50the love of his life amy his ex-girlfriend is now engaged to mario fierro and from that point
31:57we believe he shifted his focus to stalking mario within hours of that posting coming out jesse began
32:05conducting numerous google searches and going to paid websites to try to identify who mario fiero was
32:13where he lived where he lived what cars he drove he starts looking up how to shoot and kill somebody
32:18he looks up self-defense how busy the san ego police are do they track your cell phone which explains
32:24why
32:24he didn't bring his phone to the crime scene and he looks up does a shot to the head kill
32:30jesse was enraged
32:33to the point that he could not stop himself towards the end of 2020 while researching how he was going
32:41to murder mario
32:42he was posting social media posts claiming to be a student at cathedral catholic high school
32:48he would go on campus talking to other students and other faculty claiming that he was an alumni at
32:55the school trying to now get a job to be a teacher we had no idea he was on campus
33:03in the weeks prior to
33:05mario's murder 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 i just
33:26couldn't fathom someone 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 four days
33:50after he had that interview he purchased a rifle and a nine millimeter glock on his phone there were
33:57pictures of jesse that he has of himself training in the desert to shoot and he was going to a
34:03gun
34:04training center located in northern san diego to practice for weeks on in to obtain certificates
34:09for firearms usage for for weeks he was constantly at the range firing his gun and learning to shoot
34:18and the last thing he researched the night before he murdered mario was how to shoot a gun without
34:26flinching it 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 the other thing we noted that during his searches he knew when cathedral high school was going back to
34:47school the first day after covid so he waited out there knowing that mario was going to leave to go
34:53teach at school and would be coming out to his car as i was reviewing the evidence it became crystal
35:00clear
35:00to me that his plan was to murder mario because he was the person he believed was responsible
35:06for taking away his prior girlfriend
35:14the plan started in 2019
35:19jesse started stalking amy after she broke up with him and he became fixated on her for months jesse was
35:26stalking amy calling her non-stop following her showing up to random places he's not taking no for
35:33an answer when he sees amy and mario's engagement announcement on social media jesse's jealousy consumed
35:42him so 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 fiance 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
36:08online and started applying for faculty positions at cathedral catholic high school where amy was a
36:15teacher then jesse began tracking down mario's address and mapping the area in january he purchased
36:22two firearms a nine millimeter 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
37:29we 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
37:49obsession in court jesse was so persistent and determined to speak with amy that he was trying to
37:56pass notes to amy or at least get her attention like he still thought there was a chance to the
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
38:44couldn't
38:45even lift his head up jesse really thought he could pull one over on the jury oh my gosh like
38:52these
38:52are some really weird search it was very difficult to be in the court to me it's hard to even
39:00give that
39:00person a name my sister and i couldn't look at him but we wanted to we wanted to see what
39:08kind of person
39:09would do this i 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
39:49those 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
40:12this was not an act of self-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
40:46to me shows that 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 justice was
41:05going to be had and that jesse can never do this again
41:14verdict 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 jesse was convicted of first degree murder
41:30with the special circumstance of lying in wait along with the allegation of using a firearm during the
41:35commission of that murder he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus an
41:41additional 25 years to life
41:46i'm glad justice was served
41:51but none of this is bringing my friend back there was a memorial at cathedral for mario
41:57on the football field it was a lot of mario's close friends and family the faculty and it was
42:03an opportunity for you know people to come together and grieve what gets me when i think about losing
42:10mario was the memories that were going to come the future that he had he was so into molding the
42:18youth
42:18and being a teacher he was super excited to be a dad he was going to be great in this
42:24next phase of
42:25life and and that was just robbed from him
Comments