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EDINBURG — The last piece of evidence jurors heard before closing arguments and breaking for deliberations Thursday was that a key eyewitness for prosecutors lied on the stand.
Defense attorneys for 31-year-old Weslaco resident Victor Lee Alfaro proved his former lover lied when she told jurors Tuesday that the defendant confessed he killed her little brother after smoking meth on May 4, 2016, when she supposedly visited him at the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center in December 2016.
Alfaro is accused of killing 21-year-old Reynaldo Reyes Jr. He has pleaded not guilty.
The testimony came from convicted felon Nancy Arlene Lopez, 32, who perjured herself when she told this to the jury.
Her statement is the only confession that surfaced in testimony or evidence during Alfaro’s second trial on the murder allegations, and Lopez is the only person who allegedly witnessed the shooting.
However, testimony from a Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant sucked all the air out of that claim on Thursday morning when jail visitation records revealed Lopez never visited Alfaro since his 2016 arrest.
Her testimony was also an issue for jurors in Alfaro’s first trial in March 2018, newspaper archives indicate.
That proceeding ended in mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous decision following 13 hours of deliberation. State District Judge Mario E. Ramirez Jr. also acquitted Alfaro of an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge for allegedly pointing a gun at Lopez due to a lack of evidence during that proceeding.
And this week, after three days of testimony, Lopez’s testimony is again being challenged for its credibility, particularly with hard evidence the jurors have that she lied about Alfaro’s supposed jailhouse confession to her.
Lopez claimed that after that meeting she immediately went to the Edinburg Police Department and informed lead investigator Joaquin Mendoza.
He testified Wednesday and his testimony conflicted with hers as he told jurors she told him several days after the meeting.
The truth is clear now: Lopez never visited Alfaro at the jail.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Jay Garza admitted Lopez was probably lying, but he said the evidence shows that she is not lying about key elements of the crime.
For instance, Garza noted how Lopez stayed at the crime scene and cooperated with police while Alfaro fled.
The prosecutor also said that her story about Lopez telling police that Alfaro smoked methamphetamine and began acting erratically before running into Reyes’ bedroom and shooting the man three times had not changed.
It should be noted that no evidence of drug use has been shown to the jury nor have any toxicology results for Alfaro.
The only testimony about methamphetamine use comes from Lopez, who never brought Alfaro’s alleged drug use up until after the shooting, later describing him as a daily user. The allegation of methamphetamine use right before the murder first surfaced after the supposed jailhouse visit that never happened.
Garza also told jurors to pay attention to evidence about the gun used in the shooting, which Lopez said Alfaro took everywhere with him.
Ballistics confirm it was the gun used to kill Reyes.
Lopez claimed that Alfaro handed it to her after he backed out of the apartment and left after the shooting.
She said she then pulled out the magazine and put it on a table and showed it to police when they arrived.
Alfaro’s fingerprints are not on that gun, but Lopez claimed he wore winter weather gloves when he handled the weapon.
Jurors have not seen those gloves and there has been no evidence that police recovered them. Lopez is the sole source of this claim.
However, Lopez is not the only one who has testified that Alfaro handled the gun. Reyes’ sister, Jessica, took the stand Wednesday and explained how Lopez, her older sister, tricked her into buying the gun since Lopez, a convicted felon, could not.
Jessica told jurors that Lopez gave the handgun to Alfaro as a gift, which actually conflicts with Lopez’s testimony.
Lopez told jurors she needed the gun because she had been harboring people in the country illegally in her Edinburg Village Apartment prior to the murder. She said she wanted the weapon after people broke into that apartment and took the people she was harboring.
Still, Garza said while some details in her story changed, the key elements that include the drug use, Alfaro shooting her brother before backing out of the apartment and handing her the gun before leaving never changed.
The prosecutor also pointed to Mendoza, the lead investigator who believed Lopez and determined that Alfaro was indeed the suspect.
Mendoza also testified that Lopez was a mess on the night of the shooting and in trauma because of the death of her brother.
While Lopez is not perfect and had been caught in a lie, Garza said the only blame she deserves is letting Alfaro into her life.
“Nancy deserves blame for allowing that person to smoke meth in her apartment,” Garza said while pointing at Alfaro.
He also urged jurors to try and logically reason why Lopez would kill her own brother for no reason.
Hector Hernandez Jr., one of Alfaro’s attorneys, used his closing arguments to blast Lopez, calling her a liar and pointing out numerous inconsistencies throughout her testimony.
He described Lopez as a criminal who has no fear or respect.
Hernandez also pointed to the lack of physical evidence linking Alfaro to the crime.
His fingerprints aren’t on the gun. Investigators also found no blood or DNA on his clothing linking him to the crime scene after they arrested him several hours after the shooting, which forensic scientists confirmed.
He only had trace amounts of gunshot residue on his hands and Hernandez pointed out that the gunshot residue found on his clothes were all in places where a police officer would search someone while arresting them, suggesting that police could have deposited the gunshot residue during the search and while placing Alfaro in handcuffs.
“Science doesn’t lie,” Hernandez said. “People lie.”
The jury began deliberating just after noon on Thursday and broke at 4:30 p.m.
Two jurors were also dismissed prior to Thursday’s proceedings due to serious personal issues.
Deliberations continue Friday morning.
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