At the trial, the prosecution scores a win from a surprising witness: the defendant’s mother. She’s been asked to help convict her son, but it’s unclear whether it will be enough to put Daisy’s killer behind bars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is the significance of Claudia Gutierrez's testimony?
This episode discusses intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Please listen with care. On April 27th, 2022, Claudia Gutierrez took the stand at her son's murder trial. She recounted how, about a year and a half earlier, Victor had gone missing. After he didn't come home one night, she tried texting him. There was no reply. Then she texted Daisy. She figured they were together.
Again, no reply. It wasn't totally unusual for him not to come home. He sometimes slept on the streets or stayed in motels. But after a couple nights passed and Claudia still hadn't seen or heard from Victor, she started to become worried. She went to her local police station and filed a missing persons report. It was February 25th, 2021, just two days after Daisy had been found dead.
A couple of weeks went by. No sign of Victor. And then, Claudia told the jury, she got a phone call. It was him. He wanted to talk. And he needed money. He gave his mother his location, and she agreed to meet him, somewhere on the street. By that point, she must have learned that Daisy had been murdered. Because when she met up with her son, she asked him, point blank, did you do it?
Meaning, did you kill Daisy? But Victor didn't respond. At least not verbally.
He just lowered his head. For me, that is important as the prosecutor presenting evidence because it's what we call an adoptive admission.
That's Deputy District Attorney Leslie Hinshaw. She was the prosecutor on this case. And to her, this moment, this moment where Victor's mother described her son hanging his head, it was a big deal.
Basically, the theory on an adoptive admission is that if you didn't do it, you would say, no, I didn't do it. What are you talking about? But when you don't say anything, you're basically accepting the truth of it without saying yes, without agreeing.
As the prosecutor, Leslie had anticipated this moment. She'd interviewed Claudia before the trial started, and she'd questioned her on the stand during the preliminary hearing, about seven months before that. And during that hearing, Claudia testified that she urged her son to do the right thing, to turn himself in to the authorities.
She said that he responded by telling her that he was going to do it. He was going to turn himself in. That was the last time she saw him. But at trial, Claudia's recollection had become hazy. When Leslie questioned her, she said she couldn't remember whether Victor had told her that he'd turned himself in. I don't remember if he said anything like that, she told the court.
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