Sierra LaMar family marks anniversary of girl’s disappearance

It went unspoken in court, but it seemed everyone in attendance knew Thursday marked a special day in the Sierra LaMar trial: Exactly five years to the day, the 15-year-old was reported missing from her Morgan Hill home and never seen again.

The murder trial in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose continued for Antolin Garcia-Torres, a 25-year-old Morgan Hill man suspected of kidnapping and killing the teen. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Garcia-Torres is also being tried on charges that he attempted to kidnap and carjack three women outside Morgan Hill Safeway stores in 2009, one of them outside a location where he had worked. The court did not hear additional evidence in Sierra’s disappearance Thursday morning as fingerprint experts testified on evidence collected from the 2009 Safeway attacks.

Outside court Thursday afternoon, Sierra’s father, Steve LaMar, tried for the fifth year in a row to grapple with the disappearance of his daughter on that fateful day.

“It’s always a sad day, this day,” he said. “We’re thinking of Sierra. We’ll get together later with some of her friends.”

Every year since she’s gone missing the family has gathered with Sierra’s friends on March 16 to think of her, which Steve LaMar said they planned on doing Thursday night.

The day after Sierra disappeared on the way to catch her school bus, her phone was found in a nearby field. Her clothes, books and purse turned up in the area a day later. She was presumed dead by authorities.

Thursday was the last day of the seventh week of the trial, which is expected to continue through April. Prosecutor David Boyd and counsel have called dozens of witnesses, ranging from Sierra’s mother, Marlene LaMar, to deputies and DNA experts tasked with the investigation into her disappearance.

As the prosecution prepares to close its case as early as next week, its strongest piece of evidence in the murder is hair identified as Sierra’s on rope found in the trunk of Garcia-Torres’ Volkswagen Jetta.

In the Safeway cases, prosecutors have leaned on the fact a fingerprint on the battery of a stun gun used in one of the attacks matched Garcia-Torres.

Defense attorney Alfonso Lopez and his team have countered the prosecution at every turn, seeking to cast doubt on the monthslong delay between when the rope was processed as evidence and the hair was found, and musing of other ways Garcia-Torres’ fingerprint could have ended up on the stun gun battery.