Jury gets DJ’s shooting case
Prosecution: Unanswered questions over man’s death don’t mean innocence
Jurors deliberating a count of second-degree murder against Edwin Anaya will never know all the details about the incident that ended the life of 40-yearold radio DJ Pete Gurule, even as they consider more than 200 pieces of evidence in the case, a prosecutor said in his closing arguments Tuesday, the last day of Anaya’s trial.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long opened his statements with an apology to the jury.
“I’m sorry. This is not an easy case to listen to. … It’s not easy because not all of your questions are going to get answered, and in fact all of your questions about this case are never going to be answered,” Long said. “But does that mean that you have to find the defendant not guilty? No. No, it doesn’t.”
Testimony ended Tuesday in Anaya’s five-day trial, in which he is accused of fatally shooting Gurule in the early morning of Jan. 18, 2021, amid an altercation after the two men had spent the previous evening drinking alcohol, consuming marijuana and listening to music at Gurule’s home ahead of a planned target shooting trip.
Anaya says the slaying was in self-defense — that he had fallen asleep on Gurule’s couch and woke to find the man sexually assaulting him before a brutal fight that left him badly beaten. Gurule had him in a headlock and he could scarcely breathe when he grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger, he told the jury Monday.
Jurors are set to continue deliberating Wednesday.
State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington instructed them to decide whether Anaya is guilty of second-degree murder, a lesser charger of voluntary manslaughter or not guilty of a crime in Gurule’s death.
Long told the court his job as a lawyer is to poke, prod and test witnesses’ memories on the stand.
As he continued his cross-examination of Anaya on Tuesday — a process that started Monday — he did just that.
Long played audio of Anaya’s initial 911 call after the shooting, in which he could be heard breathing heavily. Authorities have said he was found about 270 yards from Gurule’s house
at an intersection close to Santa Fe High School, a distance more than 2½ times longer than a football field, Long said. The attorney said Anaya was not wheezing or gasping for air during the call.
Anaya had told the jury he was out of shape at the time of the shooting.
Remarking on the importance of timing in the case, Long asked Anaya if he was surprised to hear Gurule’s body was cold when police discovered it.
Anaya said he was surprised. During his closing arguments later Tuesday, Long said Anaya had told a doctor multiples times after the shooting the year was 2016 — not 2021. He contrasted the defendant’s lack of recollection then with what he described as Anaya’s perfect memory when recounting how he had received each and every injury shown on his body on video monitors during the trial.
“Edwin Anaya — drunk Edwin Anaya, wasted Edwin Anaya, can’t-remember-the-year Edwin Anaya, can’t-stand-up-on-his-own-two-feet Edwin Anaya ... that’s who [the defense is] arguing gets to decide who lives and dies,” Long said.
Defense attorney Dan Cron started his closing arguments by reciting the iconic opening line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
“‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ ” the attorney said. “It also describes how it was to roll with Pete Gurule.”
Cron said Gurule’s passion and exuberance crossed over into addiction and malevolence, leading his wife to file for divorce and prompting him to move to a separate home from his family. It was at the height of Gurule’s self-destruction when he and Anaya became friends, Cron said.
He presented a photo taken during Gurule’s autopsy showing how the bullet that killed him was fired from below his sternum and exited in an upward trajectory — which he said matched with Anaya’s description of being brought to his knees and suffocated by Gurule in a headlock before he took his gun out of a pocket and fired it so he could be set free.
While Anaya was able to present a clear version of events that explained the shooting, Cron said, the state did no such thing.
“This is where I would normally be able to tell you what the prosecution’s theory of the case is, but to this day, I still don’t know what it is. Whatever it is, it doesn’t make sense,” Cron said. “Pete and Edwin were friends by [the testimonies of] all available sources.”
He added, prosecutors didn’t bring forward any witnesses to say his client had a violent or abusive side.
Long reminded the jury it was Anaya who was on trial, not Gurule.
“Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, the theory of the case is pretty simple. When you get that drunk, and you get that high, and you put guns into the mix, your thinking is not rational,” Long said.
While Anaya’s speech sounded slurred during his 911 call, and he admitted on the stand to drinking alcohol and smoking “a bowl” of marijuana, Cron said, however, none of the officers who responded to the fatal shooting decided to test Anaya’s blood-alcohol content.