Prosecution Urges Jury to Consider First-Degree Murder Verdict Against LAFD Captain

The prosecution and defense in the murder trial of former LAFD Capt. David Del Toro delivered their closing arguments today—and the fate of the veteran firefighter accused of a killing a 42-year-old woman in his Eagle Rock home in 2006 now rests with a jury that has spent the past 40 days considering a virtual mountain of evidence and witness testimonies in this long-delayed case.

“We rely on firefighters to protect us, we rely on them to save us from burning buildings, to rescue us from mangled cars, to provide medical care to us until we can reach a hospital,” Deputy District Attorney Robert Grace told jurors in an impassioned 75-minute plea that summarized the brutal murder of Jennifer Flores, whose battered and almost nude body was found two blocks east of Del Toro’s home on Vincent Avenue on Aug. 16, 2006.

As heroes and role models, Grace continued, firefighters sacrifice their lives for the public, as they did on 9/11. “We don’t expect that they will beat us to a pulp, we don’t expect that they will choke the life out of us, we don’t expect that they will drag us behind their truck like a mangled doll—we expect that they will live up to the Los Angeles Fire Department motto, ‘Serving with Courage, Integrity and Pride.’”

David Del Toro “fits none of those descriptions—he did not serve us well,” said Grace. “Certainly he treated Jennifer Flores as less than a human being—he treated her like fire debris that must be cleared from a burn area. This defendant threw out Jennifer like so much trash on a barren street.”

Asking the jury to consider Del Toro guilty of first-degree murder, which involves not just “intent to kill” but premeditation and deliberation, Grace presented a detailed PowerPoint account of the key events that allegedly occurred on the night of Aug. 15, 2006 and the early hours of Aug. 16, 2006. (See images, from the November 2006 Grand Jury testimony, in the photo section.)

One of the most contentious pieces of evidence revolves around a single tire mark, allegedly from Del Toro’s Toyota Tundra truck, that left a trail of Flores’ blood and DNA from the spot where her body was found all the way to Del Toro’s house. According to an automotive expert called by the defense as a witness, a tire on one side of the truck could not possibly have left a mark because to do so the other three tires would have to be locked—which is highly improbable—and the single tire in question would show signs of considerable wear and tear.

“The tire mark, if you think about it, is irrelevant,” said Grace. Although the mark did lead the police to Del Toro’s house, “it doesn’t tell you who killed the victim.” Far more significant than the tire mark, Grace added, was a blood stain that police found on a pillar of the porch in Del Toro’s house, not to mention such other incriminating evidence as the victim’s blood inside the house, a short piece of rope allegedly used to strangle her, and various blood-stained garments and Flores’ purse, which were found stuffed inside a plastic bag.

Further, Grace reminded the jury of a “collage of what appears to be efforts on the part of the defendant to clean up the evidence.” In his testimony before the jury on Feb. 24, Del Toro denied that he killed Flores but admitted that he was so drunk and sleep-deprived that he “made a mess trying to clean something up” in his living room.

“This is not a general clean-up,” Grace told the jury. “This is a clean-up by somebody who knows he may be responsible for murder.”

Despite Del Toro’s insistence that he was suffering from an alcohol-induced blackout and that his condition prevented him from recalling certain events on the night of Flores’ murder, it's what the defendant did remember that's of vital significance, Grace said. Most importantly, during a two-hour audiotaped interview that he gave to LAPD detectives shortly after his arrest on the morning of Aug. 16, 2006, Del Toro said to himself in an unguarded moment while he was alone that his running shoes were stained with Flores’ blood. (“She was murdered in my house, man,” the jury heard Del Toro say to himself during the brief monologue, which was presented in court as evidence on Feb. 16. “F--k—it’s on my shoes.”)

What’s telling, said Grace, is the police didn’t say anything to Del Toro about his shoes at the time. “In fact, the police hadn’t even tested the shoes for blood, so the only person who may have known about the blood was the defendant,” said Grace, adding: “And note that there was only a small amount of blood on the tennis shoes. How did he know about that? Because he cleaned the blood up—there was more blood on those shoes than was found. These are key points that show you the defendant is a big liar.”

In urging the jury to consider a first-degree murder verdict, Grace pointed to the alleged intentionality, premeditation and deliberation of the crime. He said that Del Toro initially struck Flores with a blunt-force object to her head and then, realizing that she wasn’t dead, made a “conscious decision to move to another mode of attack” by using a ligature such as a rope to strangulate her. Had Del Toro acted in the heat of passion, Grace argued, Flores’ head would have been bashed in.

“This is the essence of first-degree murder—we know that the defendant was thinking rationally and making conscious decisions because he didn’t want to get caught,” Grace said. “He went to extreme lengths to clean up, hide and get rid of an trace of Jennifer in his house. He is a murderer desperate to avoid detection.”

For his part, defense attorney Joseph Gutierrez began his closing arguments with what he said was a quote from Thomas Jefferson—“doubt is preferable to error.” (As it happens, that’s a misquote—Jefferson did not use the word “doubt”; the correct quote is: “Ignorance is preferable to error.”)

After reminding the jury that an automotive expert witness called by the defense had discredited the prosecution’s efforts to link the trail of Flores’ blood and DNA to a single tire mark allegedly from Del Toro’s truck, Gutierrez went on to say that his client had neither a motive for killing the victim nor any malice toward her. And yet Gutierrez went to great lengths to reiterate key points from the testimonies of several expert witnesses called by the defense in an effort to show that Del Toro might have been too drunk and tired to remember what, if anything, he did to commit murder.

In essence, in his closing arguments, Gutierrez focused largely on what witnesses for the defense had said about any role that Del Toro’s alcohol-induced blackout and fatigue caused by overwork might have played in Flores’ murder. Gutierrez said virtually nothing about what Del Toro actually did during the time on Aug. 15-16, 2006 that Flores was killed. Gutierrez also attempted to draw attention to such details of the crime as the police’s inability to find the blunt object allegedly used to wound Flores in her head and the fact that the clothes she was wearing while she was killed were never found.

“From the prosecution’s point of view, we still haven’t heard what the defendant did aside from what he didn’t do,” said Grace while offering the prosecution’s rebuttal to the defense’s closing arguments. “A big part of the defense was this blackout business—but did the defense call any objective witnesses or Fire Department records to verify [Del Toro’s] blackouts? This is called failure to call logical witnesses and that pretty much shuts down this whole blackout theory on the one day that the victim gets murdered.”

As a veteran firefighter, Del Toro, 54, falls into a category of public servants—or heroes—who must be held to a higher standard than the average person, Grace said at the end of his rebuttal. “Based on the evidence and the facts, this defendant is guilty of first-degree murder—don’t let him make excuse after excuse after excuse. Hold him responsible for what he did.”

The jury will begin deliberating their verdict at 9 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, March 1, at the Los Angeles Superior Court building on Temple Street downtown. A decision is expected around mid-week.