Ex-girlfriend murder case goes to jury
Before Olga Diaz Clark slipped into a coma and died in San Francisco General Hospital, she identified the man who would ultimately be charged in her killing: her ex-boyfriend.
The 60-year-old woman’s dying declaration inside an ambulance was among the evidence presented by prosecutors in the case against Rickey Roberts, who was charged with murder and making criminal threats in Clark’s December 2015 death.
A Superior Court jury on Monday began deliberating after attorneys wrapped up closing arguments following more than a month of testimony from witnesses, investigators and
“We’re hoping for some justice and healing for the family and the community.” Beverly Upton, Domestic Violence Consortium
medical experts.
Roberts’ court-appointed attorney, Deputy Public Defender Phong Wang, argued that her client was defending himself from Clark in the early-morning hours of Dec. 13, 2015, and shoved the woman inside her cluttered Mission District apartment so he could get to the door and escape.
“The evidence shows this was a push and fall afterward,” Wang said, outlining the centerpiece of her defense strategy in closing. “He did not intend to kill her. He was reacting in self-defense.”
Roberts, 60, sat silently in court Monday, wearing a tan V-neck sweater over a striped collared shirt.
Clark’s quiet death at the hospital received little public attention and has gone almost unnoticed in the media in the years that followed. The case, though, has been a focus of many San Francisco domestic violence victim advocates, who, along with Clark’s family, have sat vigil in the courtroom gallery.
“This is a tragic case,” said Beverly Upton, executive director of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium. “We’re hoping for some justice and healing for the family and the community. San Francisco has several domestic violence-related homicides every year, and they often get very little coverage.”
Police showed up at Clark’s apartment complex on the 1800 block of 15th street after she called 911, saying Roberts — her former boyfriend who lived one floor below her — had beaten her up, Assistant District Attorney Sam Totah said.
Clark, who had a heart condition and was on blood thinners, was conscious and walking around when paramedics arrived that morning. While crying and shaking in the back of an ambulance, she told them she woke up to Roberts beating her in the head and back with closed fists as he yelled, “I will f—ing kill you” before choking her unconscious, Totah said.
Paramedics noted Clark had a bruised face, cut lip, swollen jaw, red throat and pain around her body. She soon began to feel nauseous and was rushed in an ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital, where she went into a coma. Doctors tried to relieve pressure on her brain by removing a piece of her skull, but she went into a vegetative state and died three days later.
The medical examiner determined she died from head trauma and ruled the death a homicide.
Roberts told police in an interview that “she kept pushing me, so I just went off,” Totah said.
The run-in was the latest in a series of disturbing allegations against Roberts, who prosecutors said had a history of abusing Clark.
Totah played several voice messages Roberts left on Clark’s phone in the months before her death and after they broke up.
“I might kill you on the f—ing street,” Roberts said in one message. “I got people waiting to kill your f—ing ass,” he said in another.
“This explains the mindset when he eventually ended up beating her and killing her,” Totah said.
Prosecutors also showed that Clark filed for a civil domestic vio“We lence restraining order against Roberts the month before she died, and pointed to a November 2014 incident in which Roberts was arrested for beating Clark. The charges were later dropped after the victim declined to go forward with the case.
Wang went after each piece of evidence, seeking to punch holes in the prosecution’s case.
She called Roberts’ brother as a witness, and he testified that the couple had recently reconciled and the two had spent the night in Clark’s apartment before the incident. The brother slept in Roberts’ downstairs unit that night.
Wang also called on a medical expert to argue that Clark may have died from a hypertensive bleed in her brain, which would have been brought on by her elevated blood pressure and blood thinners.
Many of the injuries on Clark’s body, Wang said, happened after she bit Roberts and he shoved her out of the way while trying to flee the apartment.
can’t say for certain that all of her injuries were from the same event,” Wang said. “It’s reasonable this was a push and fall onto an uneven surface.”
Roberts’ attorney argued that he acted in self-defense and did not intend to kill Clark, adding that he should not be found guilty of murder.
As for the phone messages, Wang admitted they “are horrible and there is no excuse.” But, Wang said, Roberts was “clearly drunk” and did not immediately follow up on the threats with violence.
In her final plea to the jury, Wang underscored the self-defense argument while saying she was not trying to blame the victim.
“The ‘Me Too’ discourse has its place,” she said. “But we can’t politicize reasonable doubt. You don’t reach a guilty verdict as an act of political will.”