A 30-year-old Los Angeles man was so high on methamphetamine that he was “detached” from reality and couldn’t form the specific intent needed for jurors to find him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of a 13-year-old girl during a carjacking in Pico Rivera four years ago, his public defender said during closing arguments Tuesday, Sept. 3.
A prosecutor disagreed, telling jurors that regardless of whether he was high, Jose Elias Aguilar made a series of decisions when he allegedly committed four carjackings over a three-day period in July 2020.
Randy Na, Aguilar’s public defender, said he merely jumped into the driver’s seat of running cars without regard for who was inside them, citing testimony from a pair of witnesses who testified that Aguilar never acknowledged them when they yelled, hit and choked him in order to get him to stop their car, which eventually led to a crash before he was taken into custody on July 5, 2020.
Jurors were handed the case Tuesday afternoon in Norwalk Superior Court following a trial that lasted more than a week. They will begin deliberations Wednesday morning.
Aguilar faces 19 felony counts, including murder, 10 counts of carjacking, five counts of kidnapping for carjacking, two counts of attempted kidnapping during the commission of a carjacking and corporal injury to a child.
Prosecutor Robert Villa said Aguilar first approached two people in a car in Los Angeles on July 2, 2020 and asked if they believed in God, before pulling a machete and breaking a window to get inside.
The two people got out of the car, with one suffering cuts, before he jumped in the driver’s seat and fled. Aguilar was then accused of committing a second carjacking in which three children were in the backseat, including a boy who was autistic. That carjacking, caught on video, showed the two girls falling out of the car as it moved forward. Aguilar then stopped after 20 to 30 feet and let the boy out before driving away.
But the most serious incident occurred on July 5, 2020 in Pico Rivera. Aguilar walked by a minivan parallel parked along Whittier Boulevard outside La Mana Tortilleria, but then turned around and got into the driver’s seat, Villa said.
Four children were in the minivan, he said. Their parents were inside the market buying food.
Aguilar jumped into the driver’s seat, looked at the children and said “Vamonos,” or “Let’s go,” Alexia Cortes, the oldest of the four who was 17-years old at the time, said during trial. Two of them were able to escape as Villa put the minivan in drive, but two others did not get out in time. An 8-year-old boy was either ejected or jumped out of the moving minivan and suffered a head injury, Villa said. Moments later, 13-year-old Isabella Cortes fell out of the minivan, hitting the concrete sidewalk before hitting a fire hydrant head first, Villa said. She died at the scene.
Aguilar was accused of continuing to drive, causing a crash at Whittier and Rosemead boulevards, before fleeing the minivan and attempting to steal another car with a woman and baby inside, Villa said. The father, hearing commotion, ran back and got back to the car as Aguilar began driving away and the couple fought with Aguilar until the car crashed into a bridge.
Nearby street vendors would reach Aguilar and hold him until sheriff’s deputies arrived.
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A witness who saw the carjacking of the Cortes’ minivan said he saw Aguilar make a swinging motion as if to try to push or hit Isabella Cortes while he sped and swerved with the sliding door open, Villa said.
“She is fighting for her life and it’s having no effect on the defendant,” Villa said. “If (Aguilar) wasn’t driving that car, with the door open and weaving at a high rate of speed, Isabella would still be with us today.”
But Na questioned the credibility of that witness and told the jury that video played during trial showed Ithat sabella Cortes was at the sliding door with one hand on either side and one foot outside of the minivan shortly before she fell out and said it would be impossible for Aguilar to have reached her from the driver’s seat.
He told the jury it was reasonable to believe that Isabella jumped or stepped out of the minivan and that Aguilar’s actions did not directly cause her death.
He asked the jury to find Aguilar not guilty of first-degree murder and find two special circumstance allegations associated with the charge to be not true.
A coroner’s witness testified that the injuries Isabella Cortes suffered were those he would expect at freeway speed, not on surface streets, Villa said.
Na questioned whether Aguilar possessed the ability to form a specific intent to harm someone, or if he was just merely stealing vehicles without a desired outcome. He said the level of methamphetamine found in Aguilar’s system was between 6 and 16 times the amount needed for therapeutic use.
“He’s paranoid, he’s hallucinating, he’s saying ‘It’s all going to burn’ and ‘Someone is trying to kill me,’” Na said. “He’s completely detached.”
But Villa, who argued for a finding first-degree murder, pointed to Aguilar’s actions, going directly to driver’s doors of running cars and getting in, as well as walking past the Cortes’ minivan, turning around and jumping into the driver’s seat.
“It’s amazing that the one thing he keeps doing is seeing people in a running car, then he decides to get in that car,” Villa said.
“He knows police are coming, he knows people are chasing him and what does he do? Tries to carjack someone else,” Villa continued. “Because that’s what he does best. He finally got caught.”