The trajectory of the bullet that killed Nikha Marcella DeGuzman and the microscopic gunshot residue allegedly left behind on her boyfriend prove to one thing to Alameda County prosecutors: That she was murdered by her beau, Nolan Hurd.
To Hurd’s attorney, it all amounts to mere “innuendo.” Listen no further, he said, than DeGuzman’s own words on the ensuing 911 call.
“She says from her mouth: ‘I shot myself,’ ” the attorney recalled.
Those dueling perspectives dominated opening statements Tuesday in Hurd’s murder trial, where he stands accused of fatally shooting DeGuzman, 20, more than three years ago from their hotel bed at Fremont’s Good Nite Inn.
Hurd, 25, faces a single murder charge in the woman’s January 2022 death. It marked the final act to a relationship that, prosecutors say, left DeGuzman “upset and fearful” of a man who had a history of “encouraging and imploring her to take the fall for him.”
“It was the defendant who shot Nikha,” the prosecutor, Amanda Chavez, told the jury. “I’m going to ask you to return the only verdict that is supported by evidence in this case … and that’s a verdict of guilty.”
The two met in 2019 and quickly moved in together — most recently living in the converted garage of a home belonging to Hurd’s grandmother and aunt. Hurd had previously faced allegations of domestic violence by a previous girlfriend, Chavez told the jury Tuesday. And DeGuzman’s own demeanor appeared to change during her three years with him, the prosecutor said.
The evening of Jan. 27, 2022, DeGuzman checked into the Fremont hotel with Hurd. Within 90 minutes, neighbors recalled hearing an argument between a man and a woman, followed by a single gunshot, Chavez said. A minute or two passed before anyone began calling for help, the neighbors told investigators.
Neighbors later reported seeing DeGuzman run or crawl naked from the room, while Hurd tried to pull her back by the waist.
At some point, Hurd phoned 911 — a call that was recorded and played for the jury Tuesday. During it, he could be heard yelling, “My girlfriend just shot herself,” along with “she shot herself in the head,” and “stay with me, stay with me, baby.” Meanwhile, DeGuzman could be heard wailing in the background.
The playing of the tape Tuesday summoned loud sobs from DeGuzman’s family and friends in the gallery, while Hurd — dressed in a grey suit with a blue tie — sat next to his attorney, bowing his head a couple times.
In the recording, “Nikha’s voice becomes fainter, more garbled — it’s capturing her in the moments where she’s dying,” Chavez told the jury. “It’s your job as jurors to decide what’s being said in that call. Don’t simply adopt what someone else says that they hear.”
DeGuzman was pronounced dead two days later. Fremont police didn’t move to arrest Hurd for another six months, after crime scene and firearms experts weighed in with their own conclusions.
Gunshot residue — the microscopic particles launched into the air every time a gun is fired — was only found on Hurd’s hands, suggesting that he fired the fatal round, Chavez told the jury. Conversely, no such residue was found on DeGuzman’s hands, the prosecutor said.
Neither DeGuzman’s nor Hurd’s DNA or fingerprints were found on the black .40-caliber gun that was later discovered on the hotel room floor, a few feet from its magazine, Chavez said.
The bullet entered through the back of DeGuzman’s head and exited out the conch of her left ear, traveling at a slight downward angle, Chavez told the jury. It appeared to have been fired from the bed, the prosecutor said, striking a wall above a nearby television.
To Hurd’s attorney, the entire case “starts and ends with that 911 call.”
He described how an audio technology expert would testify about having parsed through the recording, singling out each person’s words and amplifying them. Handing out transcripts of the call to the jury, the attorney implored them to listen for DeGuzman’s words — particularly the moment when, he said, DeGuzman appeared to describe shooting herself.
“This recording is a genuine moment in time,” said the attorney, Adam Pennella. “It’s a sad and tragic moment. It’s a moment of true emotion — two people experiencing a traumatic event simultaneously. Nikha in the last moment of her consciousness. Nolan trying to make sense of what just happened.”
“It is a moment of fear for each of them,” Pennella added. “And it’s a moment when they’re responding in real time, without the time or opportunity for fabrication.”
He questioned whether the couple’s hotel neighbors could be certain that the arguing they heard that night truly came from Hurd and DeGuzman’s room. And he warned the jury about the fickle nature of gunshot residue, which he said could easily have been passed from DeGuzman to Hurd in the frantic moments after the fatal shot was fired.
Pennella also described how DeGuzman had a history of suicidal behavior, leading her to be hospitalized at least once in a hospital emergency room and a psychological ward. The attorney tied that behavior to a deeply traumatic childhood for DeGuzman, which included the death of her father when she was 10 and a mother who was repeatedly incarcerated on drug charges.
While a prosecutor said such suicidal behavior appeared to end about six years before her death, Hurd’s attorney countered that DeGuzman has been diagnosed with a form of chronic depression left her at continued risk of self harm.
Even DeGuzman’s fatal gunshot wound was “an odd injury,” Pennella said, one that “is not a wound that suggests an intentional killing.”
Since his arrest in DeGuzman’s death, Hurd has been charged in a 2024 stabbing at Santa Rita Jail, while also picking up a weapons charge just a couple weeks ago after investigators claimed he had homemade knife at the jail. Neither charge will be decided at his current trial.