A Sonoma County judge declared a mistrial Thursday after jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict in the case of a 2023 stabbing outside a Santa Rosa bar that left one man dead.
The 12-person jury split evenly, 6-6, on whether to convict Braulio Garcia III of murder in the killing of 38-year-old Asante VanDyke outside Gary’s at the Belvedere on Mendocino Avenue.
Jurors began deliberating last Sept. 18 after two weeks of testimony. Over four days, including one disrupted by a courthouse evacuation, they told Judge Paige Hein they were unable to reach a decision.
“We tried. We tried hard,” one juror told Hein. When asked if more time would help, each juror said no.
The jury foreman said the group voted four times on the murder charge and once on related charges, each time evenly split. He described the jurors as respectful and said no one argued during deliberations.
Hein dismissed the jury. Lawyers will return to court Oct. 9 to discuss what happens next.
The case centered on a fight outside the bar in the early morning of Feb. 1, 2023. Garcia’s lawyer, Rachel McAllister, argued VanDyke was killed by another man, Louis Robert Campos, who police identified but never arrested. She cited DNA found under VanDyke’s fingernails that matched Campos, not Garcia.
Garcia and another man, Richard Ponce of Santa Rosa, were both arrested and charged after the fight. Ponce later pleaded no contest to two assault charges and in March was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
What started the fight is still disputed. Prosecutors say it was over someone’s girlfriend. McAllister said it stemmed from an earlier confrontation inside the bar.
Prosecutors said that as VanDyke and his friends were leaving, Ponce caused a distraction while Garcia punched VanDyke and stabbed him in the chest and stomach. When VanDyke’s friends stepped in, prosecutors said Garcia stabbed two of them. Ponce then fired a gun, hitting one man in the arm.
Garcia and Ponce ran but were arrested days later.
Months afterward, VanDyke’s family and friends gathered outside the bar and marched through downtown Santa Rosa to call attention to the violence.
The case also led to a federal lawsuit last year by Ponce’s sister and her friend, who said the arrests were wrongful. The city of Santa Rosa settled in April for $300,000 but denied any wrongdoing.