Opinion ID: 1135884
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Prosecution's Evidence at Trial

Text: Lorenzo Garcia was driving a taxi shortly after 1:30 a.m. on June 20, 1991, when the taxi stalled on a freeway on-ramp. Garcia parked the taxi on the side of the ramp close to the guardrail, locked the taxi, and walked home. Shortly before 2:40 a.m., Maria Estrada encountered the taxi while driving on the same on-ramp. The taxi was no longer parked against the guardrail but instead was angled into the roadway, and there were two men near it. Estrada stopped and asked them if there was a problem. With Estrada in the car were her seven- and nine-year-old sons, her four-year-old daughter, her fourteen-year-old brother, and her mother. One of the men approached and asked if Estrada had jumper cables. Estrada said she did not. This man repeated his question in a harsher tone. Estrada started to drive away. The man to whom she had been speaking produced a gun and fired at Estrada from close range, fatally wounding her. As the shot was fired, or shortly before, passengers in Estrada's car heard one of the men say Oh, no. The two men fled. At approximately 2:40 a.m., Shirley Forest was awakened by banging on the door and window of her apartment, which was located very near the on-ramp where the shooting occurred. Opening her door, Forest found codefendant Fletcher, who was a friend of her nephew, and defendant Moord. Forest refused Fletcher's request that he and Moord be allowed to stay the night, but she called a taxi for the two men. While the two men were waiting in Forest's apartment, Forest saw Fletcher pick up a gun that had dropped from his jacket. Fletcher and Moord left Forest's apartment in a taxi at 3:12 a.m. A little while later, they turned up at the apartment of Fletcher's former girlfriend Tambushia Hewitt, where they spent the rest of the night. Fletcher told Hewitt that something had happened and that he hoped no one was dead. Investigation at the scene of the shooting revealed that the antenna of Garcia's taxi had been removed and apparently used to unlock its doors. Some shoe prints at the scene were consistent with shoes that Moord was wearing when arrested; other shoe prints at the scene were consistent with shoes that Fletcher had left with Hewitt after the shooting. While in custody awaiting trial, Fletcher made statements to fellow inmate Roland Kramer incriminating both himself and Moord. At the second trial, Kramer described Fletcher's statements this way: [Fletcher] told me that he and a friend were on a freeway ramp and had a cab or a vehicle  like there was a cab or something there, and they were using jumper cables or some kind of ruse to get people to stop and that they were doing that so when people would stop that they could rob them, take their money. According to Kramer, Fletcher had also said that this woman had slowed down and stopped, and ... as she drove away he shot at her, and that he was facing murder charges because the woman had died.