Brother of East Bay woman charged with murder of missing Carmel teen, pressured over his involvement in killing – East Bay Times

For the second time in as many trial days, Marco Antonio Quintanilla, accused of complicity to a Murder in October 2021 in Fairfield involving his sister, testified Tuesday in Solano County Superior Court, with the prosecutor pressing him over conflicting statements he made to investigators.

Throughout the morning session in Department 11 and into the early afternoon, Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro continued to cross-examine Quintanilla, who, as he resumed his testimony, told her that when he “heard about the murder, I thought it was a joke.”

Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, allegedly shot and killed Leilani Beauchamp19, of Carmel, on the morning of Oct. 30 at a home on Cascade Lane, while in bed with Juan Parra-Peralta, with whom Quintanilla was once romantically involved. Her brother, 30, also of Pittsburg, is charged with the additional charge.

Shapiro also repeatedly showed the jury video clips of Marco Quintanilla speaking with Fairfield police detectives Dennis Chapman and Ray Hamilton, handing out transcripts to the 12 jurors and two alternates to follow each time.

At one point, in a video recording of an interview on November 2, 2021, Marco Quintanilla appeared to relinquish his memory of the moment he spoke to Parra-Peralta on October 30 while Parra-Peralta, then 21 and a former airman at Travis Air Force Base, sat in his Cadillac.

Marco Quintanilla’s attorney, Laurie Savill, a San Francisco attorney, frequently objected to Shapiro’s questions and statements.

“When you told the officers, ‘I thought they were joking,’ that was a lie,” Shapiro said.

He denied her claim.

She noted that some evidence showed Marco Quintanilla, previously convicted of attempted murder in Contra Costa County in August 2013, saying, “I don’t want anyone to know about it,” an apparent reference to his knowledge of the crime and his alleged involvement in the crime. his possession of a firearm related to the crime.

Marco Quintanilla admitted to lying to Chapman and Hamilton during the Nov. 2 interview, Shapiro said, then, magnifying a grid of cell phone calls and text messages, showed jurors the number of conversations between him and his sister on October 30, the day Jessica Quintanilla and Parra-Peralta loaded Beauchamp’s body into the Cadillac and drove to a rural roadside near Salinas, where Parra-Peralta dumped her body wrapped in blankets down a hill.

“You testified that you were arrested and had no idea why,” Shapiro said.

“Yes,” Marco Quintanilla, bearded and wearing a light brown shirt and a black tie over black trousers.

Outside the jury’s presence, Shapiro showed a clip showing he lied during an interview on November 1, and Savill objected, citing section 352 of the Evidence Code, adding that her client had already admitted to the interview on November 1 had been a lie. 1 job interview. The section allows a judge to exclude evidence if it is outweighed by the likelihood that its admission will take too much time, create unnecessary prejudice, confuse the issues, or mislead the jury.

Savill claimed that many of Marco Quintanilla’s statements “are not actual lies.”

During the afternoon session, Shapiro continued to show more video clips of the investigators’ recorded interviews, including one in which the Quintanillas sat alone in the interrogation room, appearing to call Parra-Peralta a “af – – – ing liar.”

The first witness to testify at the trial, Parra-Peralta, said that after the shooting, Jessica Quintanilla forced him to clean out the bedroom where the shooting occurred and, at gunpoint, drove the Beauchamp’s body to the rural road in Salinas.

On Thursday, Marco Quintanilla recognized a new shovel that his sister and Parra-Peralta purchased at a San Jose Home Depot, in addition to a semi-automatic handgun that was previously purchased in October and later found at his residence on Oct. 30.

He told Savill during her direct examination that he would not have taken the gun or shovel if he had known they were involved in a crime.

During her interrogation, Shapiro repeatedly told Marco Quintanilla that he was lying, including, based on Parra-Peralta’s previous testimony, on this statement: “If something happens to her, something will happen to you.”

He denied making the statement.

Marco Quintanilla also wasn’t sure whether his sister told him, “We shot someone” or “He shot someone.”

But Marco Quintanilla also often responded to Shapiro’s questions by saying, “I don’t know anymore.”

Shapiro’s cross-examination of Jessica Quintanilla on Wednesday forced the defendant to admit that she was hungover from the night’s partying and angry at her ex-boyfriend.