LAFD Captain's Girlfriend Testifies in Murder Trial

A one-time girlfriend of former LAFD Captain David Del Toro told the jury in his murder trial yesterday that he had an alcohol problem and that in one among at least four separate incidents of physically abusive behavior, he dragged her by the leg down the hallway of his Eagle Rock home, bruising her back.

The witness, Monica Gibo, said that the incident occurred on Dec. 21, 2001 after she had gone to Del Toro’s home on 5127 Vincent Ave., according to Deputy District Attorney Robert Grace, who is prosecuting the case. In an earlier incident in September of that year, Gibo said she had an argument with Del Toro at a dinner date during which they had been drinking. After arriving at his home, he repeatedly told her, “Do I need to bitch-slap you?” and then hit her with a clothes hanger, Grace said.

Later that night, while she was lying in bed with Del Toro, Gibo told the jury that he put his hands around her neck and told her that he could easily snap her neck, Grace said. Gibo and Del Toro had been dating each other since they met at the Fire Department Credit Union, where Gibo worked, in March 2001.

Del Toro, 54, is charged with the first-degree murder of Jennifer Flores, an acquaintance of his whose mangled body was found about a quarter mile from his home on Aug. 16, 2006. LAPD detectives and criminalists documented tire marks from Del Toro’s truck that left a trail of Flores’s blood and DNA leading all the way back to his house. Inside the home, investigators found a blood-soaked carpet and several blood-stained garments that Del Toro was allegedly trying to clean or dispose of. He has been charged with strangulating her to death and faces 25 years to life in state prison if found guilty.

During the trial’s opening statements on Feb. 2, Del Toro’s lawyer, Joseph Gutierrez, told the jury that in the two weeks preceding Flores’s murder his client had worked a string of 24-hour shifts, logging a total of 216 hours from Aug. 1 though Aug. 16, 2006, and that he drank alcohol to relax. “You will hear from experts how overwork affects brain chemistry,” Gutierrez told the jury, evidently paving the way for is expected to be his key argument in defending Del Toro: That the fire captain was grossly overworked and fatigued—and that he could not possibly have murdered Flores because he was not in his senses, which were further dulled by the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.

Among three other witnesses who testified before the jury on Feb. 10 was Jamie Harmel-Favor, Del Toro’s domestic violence counselor from April 2003 through June 2004. Harmel-Favor told the jury that she had conducted a total of 52 weekly sessions on domestic violence with Del Toro as well as 44 Alcoholic Anonymous sessions, Grace said.

Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the O.J. Simpson case, is conducting Del Toro’s murder trail in the Criminal Courts building on Temple Street. There was no trial today because the courts were closed on account of Lincoln’s birthday. Monday is a so-called “dark day” for the trial, which will resume Tuesday, when a forensic pathologist from the L.A. coroner’s office is scheduled to testify. The defense is also expected to present its case next week and the trial is scheduled to end Feb. 18.