Longmont murder trial continues
A Longmont murder trial continued Friday as witnesses described finding the body of the victim, Gary Hockaday, in his home and the suspect, Isaiah Rios, at a nearby storage facility.
Rios, 30, is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation and felony murder in the death of Hockaday, 80, last summer.
Rios also is charged with first-degree assault, first-degree burglary, second-degree burglary, motor vehicle theft, second-degree trespassing, theft from an at-risk person, criminal mischief, felony menacing, theft and habitual criminal sentence enhancers.
After opening arguments Thursday, Hockaday’s wife Arlyss took the stand, and said she last saw her husband about 6:30 a.m. July 18, 2019, when she left their home in the 2200 block of Jewel Street.
When she came home later in the evening, she found the house “ransacked” and their white pickup was missing.
“As I walked in looking for Gary, he wasn’t answering me,” Arlyss Hockaday said. “Going into the dining room there were stains on the carpet that looked like blood, and it looked like somebody tried to wipe them up.”
On Friday, Longmont police Sgt. Cary Mcdonald said he was the first to arrive on scene. When Arlyss Hockaday told Mcdonald the only place she had not checked was the basement, Mcdonald said he opened the door and saw a body at the base of the stairs.
After going back outside to get backup, Mcdonald said he went back downstairs and found Gary Hockaday at the bottom of the stairs.
Mcdonald said they called for medical assistance, but Hockaday had blood on his shoulder, was cold to the touch and that it was fairly obvious “he was beyond help.”
Meanwhile, other witnesses described the scene playing out at a Longmont storage facility on Sugar Mill Road, where Rios had once reportedly owned a unit.
Witnesses on Thursday testified that Rios pulled up in a truck and talked about how he “offed” or hurt someone for it.
After hearing about the interactions, a manager at the storage unit called police, witness said.
On Friday, witness Robert Smiley said he saw the white pickup drive past his unit, and then said a “lanky” Hispanic man came up to him and began to talk to him.
“He proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions, like if I could give him a ride, help him hide the truck,” Smiley said. “He then noticed a bunch of spray paint in my unit and he asked me to help him spray paint the truck.”
Smiley said the interaction was “weird” and that the man “seemed like he was kind of panicking and kind of in a rush.”
When police arrived on scene because of reports of “suspicious activity,” Smiley said the man then asked whether he could hide in his storage unit, and Smiley locked him inside and left.
Smiley said he initially told officers he had seen the man they were looking for, but that he left. But
Smiley said he became concerned for the safety of the man being locked in the storage unit and told a second officer where the man was.
Mcdonald said police were fairly certain the situation at the storage facility and the home invasion were connected and said that was confirmed when officers located Hockaday’s truck at the storage facility covered by a tarp.
Longmont police Sgt. Eric Lewis said SWAT eventually were able to open the unit and Rios came out without incident.
Several other officers took the stand to testify about taking Rios to the hospital for treatment and searching the storage unit for evidence.
Testimony ended with a man named Ricardo Cerrano, as prosecutors began eliciting testimony from the alleged multi-day crime spree Rios went on before Hockaday’s murder.
Cerrano said on July 1, 2019, several weeks before the incident, a man who police think was Rios had just moved in with him after they met through a mutual acquaintance. Cerrano, through an interpreter, testified that the man then accused Cerrano of poisoning him and threw laundry detergent all over the residence.
Cerrano said the two began to fight, with the man pulling a pocket knife. After the fight, Cerrano said the man told him that he would kill him if he went to police.
But while Cerrano referred to the man who attacked him as Rios, Cerrano was unable to identify Rios when people in the courtroom briefly took off their masks. Defense attorney Lovel Tokic also pointed out Cerrano also initially told police he thought his attacker was named “Gutierrez.”
After Cerrano’s testimony, Boulder District Judge Andrew Hartman sent the jury home for the weekend.
The trial is expected to resume Monday.
The trial can be seen on Webex at courts.state.co .us/courts/district/ Custom.cfm?district _ID=20&PAGE_ID=1053 by selecting Courtroom P.