David Del Toro: Model Citizen or Batterer Who Went Too Far?

Shortly before veteran LAFD Capt. David Del Toro was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder of a woman he claimed he barely knew and never loved, the courtroom where his dramatic trial dragged on for more than five years heard testimonies that might influence the possibility of his eventual parole.

As many as eight of Del Toro’s relatives and longtime friends rose to his defense, praising him as a calm, cheerful and competent man who worked ceaselessly for the public good, while five relatives of the woman he killed assailed him as an arrogant, merciless and evil figure who deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“It’s unfathomable how this man beat the life out of a fragile woman,” said Ellen Flores, the sister-in-law of Jennifer Flores, whose mangled and partially nude body was found two blocks from Del Toro’s Eagle Rock home on Aug. 16, 2006. “Even an animal does not deserve to be mutilated in this way.”

‘Disgrace to LAFD’

“I would like David Del Toro to know that he is a disgrace to the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Carmen Navarro, a social worker and Jennifer Flores’ cousin. “I would like him to know that he has lost the core values that he might have once embraced.”

As Del Toro, dressed in a dark suit, sat impassively in the courtroom with his eyes downcast, his victim’s brother, Richard Flores, arranged several poster-sized photos of the sensitive woman who aspired to be a successful screenwriter and who “had a love of the beach, sunsets and Shakespeare,” in the words of her cousin Carmen.

“For five long years I have had to revisit this court—and every trip has been dreaded,” said Richard, explaining that before and after every visit he had trouble sleeping and working. “Now we have come to this day,” he said, adding that no words could describe the profound loss that his family has experienced from Jennifer’s brutal murder.

“I’m hurting and I cry for her every single day,” said Jennifer’s father, Edward Flores, in what was the briefest but arguably most poignant testimony. “We are not supposed to bury our children.”

Model Citizen Whose Life Went Tragically Awry?

Chris Castellanos, a firefighter who worked for many years with Del Toro and knew him well, described him as a “loyal, committed and knowledgeable” colleague whose true personality traits had been distorted by the media. “It kills us that they don’t get aired,” he said, adding that the “news has been very negative” about Del Toro.

“It’s Christmas right now,” said Emma Mallory, one of Del Toro’s four sisters. “But David lived like it’s Christmas every day.”

He was, said his defense lawyer Joseph Gutierrez, quoting new LAFD Chief Brian Cummings, “the kind of man who would take the shirt off his back for me.” Del Toro continues to be a role model even in the L.A. County jail, said Gutierrez, adding that while the 23-year veteran of the Fire department "has shown remorse" for the crime he has been convicted of, he has not addressed it in court on his (Gutierrez's) advice. The defense attorney said he would appeal the case.

By all accounts, Del Toro lived an exemplary life, acknowledged L.A. Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace, the prosecutor in what was one of the most prolonged murder trials in the city’s memory. But “to be tagged a murderer does not come lightly and doesn’t just happen,” he said, adding that “Del Toro is a batterer and has an anger management problem that led to the slaughter of Jennifer Flores.”

Problem With Women

Del Toro was an alcoholic who beat his former wife, Melissa Dale, and his one-time girlfriend, Monica Gibo, “long before he murdered Jennifer Flores,” said Grace. “What makes this crime even more egregious is that Del Toro was put on notice by the Los Angeles City Fire Department that his continued behavior toward women could lead to the death of either himself or others.”

Not only did Del Toro choose to disregard such warnings—he showed no signs of responsibility or remorse for killing Flores during the entire trial, said Grace.

“These are the classic signs of a batterer and substance abuser—tragically, this case is all too similar to many domestic violence cases in Los Angeles,” Grace said, adding: “The violence that he perpetrated on Jennifer didn’t come out of the blue, but was part of a pattern of violence against women starting in 1998 and culminating in Jennifer’s murder.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation should be “well aware of other instances” of domestic violence that Del Toro inflicted on women,” Grace said. “These are not the acts of a hero but the acts of a violent man who ignored the principles of the LAFD [and] deserves to be incarcerated to the fullest extent and time that the law will allow.”

Just before sentencing Del Toro to a life potentially behind bars, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance Ito characterized the murder case as particularly tragic and different from “other homicide cases seen in this court.”

Unfit For Probation—and Possibly Parole

Yet Ito denied Del Toro probation. “The defendant is presumptively not eligible for probation, and given the nature of this killing, will not be suitable for probation,” he said. (Deputy D.A. Grace told Eagle Rock Patch during a recent hearing of the Del Toro case that murder convicts in California are typically not released on parole.)

Ito ordered Del Toro to pay a restitution fee of $2,587 to Flores’ family to cover the cost of her funeral, and set January 19, 2012 as the date for a “restitution hearing” to decide other related fees, such as $35,000 in compensation to Richard Flores for the pain and grief caused to him, especially during the month or so following his sister’s murder, during which he was unable to work.