Murder trial opens in killing of girl, 16

Sixteen-year-old Emili Sineace was shot to death outside her home west of Lake Worth. And there’s no dispute Brandon Santos, then 18, pulled the trigger, according to prosecutors and his attorneys.

But was the girl’s slaying on Sept. 14, 2012, intentional, making it a case of first-degree murder? Or was it a desperate act of a young man who felt he and his family were threatened, possibly by a street gang?

A Palm Beach County jury heard both theories Monday as the lawyers made their opening statements in Santos’ trial before Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer.

Sineace identified Santos as the man who shot her three times, in a statement she made to detectives before emergency surgery that couldn’t save her.

Santos also confessed to the killing five days later, after investigators tracked him to his father’s home in Port St. Lucie, according to court records that will be shared with the jurors.

What’s in question for the trial are the events leading up to the shooting, and whether Santos, now 23, will be convicted as charged.

Assistant State Attorney Jill Richstone told the jury that Santos planned the killing for two weeks, because he wanted to end a “secret” relationship with Sineace that she was going to reveal.

“He decided to kill her,” the prosecutor said.

Richstone explained that Sineace had told Santos she was pregnant and needed money, even though the pregnancy was a lie.

Santos did have a baby with a girlfriend — not Sineace — but still became romantic with Sineace, the prosecutor said.

Ultimately, he drove to Sineace’s family home after 9 p.m. to “take care of this secret he’s been keeping,” Richstone said.

Santos sent a text message to the girl to come outside. After she walked up to the car, Santos fired six shots. Despite three bullet wounds, she stumbled back inside the house on Plains Drive and collapsed in front of her younger sister, Edeline, while Santos drove off, the prosecutor said.

During the trial, the jurors will hear a recording of a frantic 911 call, and testimony from the sister. The gun used by Santos was never found, but he “fessed up,” said Richstone.

Assistant Public Defender James Snowden described Santos’ ordeal as “the pain, passion and fear of a young father.”

The attorney said Santos was still in high school when his girlfriend became pregnant, and he provided as much money from a minimum wage job to help raise the baby.

Around the same time he accepted a Facebook friend request from Sineace and became “smitten.”

Snowden said two days after Santos

and Sineace had sex, she told him she was pregnant and then refused to see him.

Later, she told Santos she had twin babies and needed money, the attorney told the jury.

Santos, being “young and stupid,” continued to send whatever cash he could, but never saw any babies, Snowden said. He said the pressure for financial support intensified, and Sineace even called Santos a “deadbeat dad.”

At one point in his opening statement, Snowden’s comment that Sineace’s brother was a gang member prompted an objection from the prosecutor.

Snowden also mentioned the name of the violent Top 6 gang, which ruled Lake Worth’s drug trade with assault rifles and shotguns until it was shut down by police in 2008.

Snowden said Sineace also threatened Santos and the baby he had with his girlfriend. “I can make your kid go away,” she allegedly told him, according to the lawyer.

Fearing some sort of gang attack, Santos was “petrified” and wasn’t sure how to stop the “sophisticated” threats from Sineace, Snowden explained.

“Brandon Santos was trying to defend his family,” he said of the shooting. “It’s a pure tragic situation.”