Witness in murder trial admits lying
Testimony describes scene of La Mesa Street killings
After a week-long break, the capital murder trial for Preston Strong resumed on Thursday in Yuma County Superior Court with the only witness to see the killer in the “La Mesa” murders testifying that he has been lying the past 12 years about what he really saw on the night of June 24, 2005.
The witness, whose name was ordered withheld by the court for his own protection, testified that at the time he was living at a home in the 2000 block of 44th Place, which is directly across the alley from 2037 La Mesa Street, where the murders happened.
In answering questions from prosecutor Karolyn Kaczorowski of the Yuma County Attorney’s Office, the witness said the evening of the murders he was drinking in his backyard with his girlfriend and a few others, when he heard someone yelling for help and gunshots.
The witness then testified that he ran out his back gate and jumped over the fence of the La Mesa residence, which is when he said he saw Preston Strong standing by the back door of the home, holding a gun in his left hand.
“We stared at each other,” the witness said. “(Strong) looked at me, looked at his gun and casually walked back inside the house.”
When asked if he went inside the home, the witness said he did not because he saw one of the victims, Luis Rios, lying on his back between the swimming pool and back fence, with his hands tied behind him.
“I saw that he had been shot once in the head and once in the chest,” the witness said. “I heard him take his last breath.”
He also testified that Strong was wearing blue shorts and a blue Tshirt, which is what he was last seen wearing on video taken from R.C. Liquor, the last place he was known to be on the day of the murders.
Strong, who is accused of kill- ing two adults and four children, is charged with six counts of first-degree murder, one count of armed robbery and one count of burglary.
He is also currently serving two life-term sentences with no chance for parole for the 2007 murder of Yuma physician Satinder Gill.
Attorneys Raymond Hanna of Prescott and William Fox of the Yuma County Public Defender’s Office have been appointed by the court to represent Strong.
The witness also testified that he lied in his statement when he told officers that the person he
saw in the backyard was Hispanic and when he provided details to two police sketch artists.
While both sketches looked different, the one he did three weeks after the murders happened was meant to resemble Rios because he couldn’t stop thinking about the victim’s face, according to his testi- mony.
When asked why he had lied, the witness said his girlfriend at the time was pressuring him not to cooperate with the police, telling him that he would be a snitch if he did.
He also testified that it wasn’t until a few years after the murder, when his sister showed him a picture of Strong that she had cut out of the Yuma Sun, that he was finally able to identify the man he saw on the porch
that night.
Hanna, during the defense’s cross-examination, tried to cast doubt on the witness’ testimony by asking why he had waited until two weeks ago to change his story, and why he had continued to lie for so many years.
When asked why he was so sure the man he saw on the porch the night of the murder was Strong, the witness answered, “I remember seeing his face.”
With the witness having recently been sentenced to 45 days in jail on a misdemeanor conviction, Hanna asked the witness if he had hoped to get a deal from prosecutors for a reduction in his sentence for coming forward with the new information.
The witness answered by saying there was no deal with prosecutors, he just wanted to do the right thing.
The trial is slated to continue today.