Sausage maker's worker testifies

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 27, 2004 | by Glenn Chapman, STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND -- Former San Leandro sausage maker Stuart Alexander played a model-turned-fledgling-employee for a fool and is now trying use her to mask the fact he executed a plan to murder meat inspectors, a prosecutor implied to jurors at Alexander's capital murder trial.

"I was in the middle of an uncomfortable situation back then, like I am now," Brooke Nakagawa said last week while being cross-examined by Deputy District Attorney Paul Hora. "I'm still in the middle."

Nakagawa, 25, was called as a witness by Alexander's defense lawyers, who maintain it was the unworldly young woman's remark about firing warning shots that prompted Alexander to gun down meat inspectors Jean Hillery, Tom Quadros and William Shaline at Santos Linguisa Factory on June 21, 2000.

Prosecutors have countered that Alexander is a vicious, vengeful bully who went so far as to research trespassing laws while plotting a lethal course of action he was so proud of that he boasted about it to friends.

Alexander, 43, is trying to shift fault onto a model/massage therapist who he wined, dined and bought clothing for after hiring her on the pretense she would help him open a set of flower shops, prosecutors say.

Nakagawa agreed with Hora that linguisa "was going out the door like hot cakes" during the three June weeks she worked as an hourly employee for Alexander in 2000. Alexander had her black out USDA stamps of approval from shipping boxes, Nakagawa said, noting she didn't pay attention at the time to what the symbols were.

Alexander paid her in cash sometimes and would treat her to lunches, dinner and shopping sprees, she said. Alexander stressed to the model the importance of appearance, saying "when you

look good, you feel good," Nakagawa testified.

She said she considered Alexander a successful businessman and "thought he was smart, because he didn't say dumb things to me."

Along with surfing the Internet for prices of flowers and going with Alexander to look at possible sites, Nakagawa helped in the Santos office and retail shop.

Hora asked Nakagawa about how she and Alexander would "goof off, have a good time" with activities such as trips to Alexander's Castro Valley area ranch, where he kept pigs and sheep.

"He was feeding the animals," Nakagawa recalled of one ranch outing. "I just took off on the motorcycle because I'd never ridden one before."

Hora pointed out that while Alexander was winning Nakagawa's admiration and devotion, his finances showed he was in the red and didn't have the cash to back a new venture.

Hora displayed Nakagawa's work time sheets at the sausage factory and asked her to tally the hours she worked on the day of the shooting and the two days prior. Nakagawa's lips moved as if speaking softly to herself and she counted on her fingers a while.

Went to parents' home

Hora wound up walking through the math with her, asking why she wrote that she arrived at 7:45 a.m. and left at 9 p.m. the day Alexander shot the inspectors dead in the retail room. Nakagawa had jumped out a ground-floor office window and sped away in her car while Alexander was on his killing spree about 3 that afternoon. She went to the Los Gatos home she shared with her parents. Her mother later called the police, who sought Nakagawa out about midnight.

Nakagawa said she went back to the plant in the days after the slayings and filled out the time card, which she signed with "I (heart) U. Take Care. God Bless. I'm Behind You."

"I saw three people get killed and I was really out of it," Nakagawa said when asked by Hora to explain. "I didn't love him ... I cared for him as a human being."

Nakagawa acknowledged she offered to run Santos and care for the animals on Alexander's ranch while he was incarcerated.

Nakagawa described Alexander as a hard-working, generous, social butterfly who could be "cocky" and a "jerk" at times.

"He was used to having things his way, because he had the money to do the things he wants to do," said Nakagawa, who listed the fact Alexander was given free coffee at a San Leandro Starbucks as among the reasons she thought him "one of the greatest guys" she'd met.

Nakagawa blamed Alexander's killing binge for her breakdown that resulted in her spend-

ing weeks in a psychiatric clinic and left her on disability.

An insurance company paid $230,000 as the result of a civil lawsuit filed against Nakagawa by Shaline's daughter, Megan.

"I'm absolutely a victim of what happened on June 21, 2000," testified Nakagawa, who has married and given birth to a daughter since the slayings. "I'm here for closure. So I can move on with my life."

Anxiety is explained

While being questioned by Hora before jurors in Alameda County Superior Court on Thursday, Nakagawa explained her shaking foot and anxious expression by telling Hora: "I'm nervous. You don't look exactly like the nicest person, so you intimidate me."

Nakagawa said she did not know Alexander had bragged of planning to kill meat inspectors and then get off light by playing crazy. She also said she did not know he once had slammed a pistol on a desk top during a snit with a real estate agent.