Jury weighs evidence in killing of 13-year-old

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 11, 2001 by Jeremy Meyer

Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of auto detailer Juan Candelaria, charged with leading an ambush on a carload of teen- agers four years ago that killed 13-year-old Gino Romero.

If found guilty of first-degree murder, the 25-year-old Candelaria faces life in prison without parole.

Closing arguments by prosecutors and Candelaria's defense attorney offered contrasting versions of the victim and defendant and differing opinions about what happened on the night of May 23, 1997.

Defense attorney Ed Farry called his client a hardworking family man who has maintained a successful business in Colorado Springs for five years. Authorities, he said, have wanted to pin Romero's death on Candelaria from day one, building their case around evidence tailored to do just that.

But prosecutors say all evidence points to one man, Juan Candelaria, as a coldhearted killer who led his friends on a daylong hunt for a Chevy Impala and the man he thought would be in it, rival gang member Pete Vincent Martinez, who had allegedly shot at Candelaria earlier in the day.

Deputy District Attorney Will Bain told jurors that Candeleria told his friends he wanted to kill Martinez.

The group fanned out across the city, looking for Martinez, Bain said. Six hours later on that Memorial Day, they spotted Martinez's Impala turning onto Lelaray Street in a Palmer Park neighborhood. Twenty seven shots were fired at the Impala from the car Candelaria was driving. Eleven shots stuck the Impala, and one hit Romero in the head.

The Panorama Middle School teen died later at Memorial Hospital. None of the other three people in the car with him were injured.

Authorities say no one from the Impala fired a shot and that no weapons or gunpowder residue were found in the car, leading them to think this was a one-sided assault on a group of teen-agers.

"Gino Romero was doing nothing more than looking for a party," Bain said. "The defendant was doing nothing more than looking to kill someone. The spirit of Gino Romero has waited four long years for justice to be served and for this defendant to be held accountable."

But Farry, Candelaria's attorney, said his client was the one in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Farry said Candelaria never fired a shot that day.

Candelaria was high on marijuana behind the wheel when a gunfight broke out, and he can't be held responsible for being an accomplice because he wasn't in the proper mental state, Farry said.

Farry suggested Candelaria's friends returned fire in self- defense, unaware that they hit Romero.

According to Farry, witnesses reported seeing occupants from both cars firing and one of the teens from the Impala running from the scene carrying a black bag, which he suggested could have contained a gun. He also said gunpowder was found at three spots on Romero's clothing, suggesting a weapon was fired from inside the Impala that night.

Testimony revealed Romero recently had joined a gang, and Farry argued a gang fight led to the gunbattle that killed Romero.

"These weren't four boys out on a lark," he said.

But he said investigators never looked for the weapons or questioned some witnesses who said they saw gunfire from both cars.

"The evidence in this case is what I call 'just so,'" Farry said. "All the acts were just so to connect them to Juan Candelaria. We think the evidence is insufficient to suggest that Juan Candelaria is guilty of first-degree murder."