Accused Child Murderer Delacruz Cries Out, "I'm Sorry For Everything!!!"

 

SAN ANGELO, TX — Isidro Delacruz was highly intoxicated and highly emotional on the night 5-year-old Naiya Villegas’s throat was gruesomely slit twice at a residence on Houston St. in northwest San Angelo on Sept. 2, 2014. This is according to several law enforcement officers who testified during the first four days of his capital murder trial.  

The 51st District Attorney Allison Palmer Thursday played an edited in-car video from San Angelo Police Officer Eric Hasty’s patrol car parked in front of the residence from that night.  Jurors watched as Delacruz came into view in the front of Hasty’s patrol car. The video evidence showed that Delacruz was handcuffed and two officers searched him and emptied his pockets onto the hood of the patrol car.  

Photos from the night of the incident (LIVE! Photo/John Basquez):
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Delacruz is heard slurring his words and screaming, “I was trying to save her man!  I was f**king trying to save her!”

Officer Eric Hasty arrived at the scene on Houston St. and went into the house where he assisted other officers in taking Delacruz out of the house where the girl lay on the living room floor with mortal wounds to her throat, according to his testimony.  

The in-car video and audio presented by the prosecution Thursday showed San Angelo Police officers saying, “Get him out of here!” This was while Delacruz is being handcuffed in the living room of the residence while another officer was applying pressure to Naiya’s neck wounds to stop the bleeding.  Officer Hasty’s microphone recorded officers telling Delacruz to ‘stand up’ while Delacruz was heard screaming, slurring his words: “I don’t care about me! Go help her man!”

At one point on the highly edited in-car video/audio, Delacruz is heard weeping and crying emotionally shouting, “I’m Sorry for Everything!”  

The video shows Delacruz being uncooperative with officers when paramedics arrived to treat the three inch cut on the back of his left arm.  He kept saying over and over, “ Don’t worry about me! I don’t care about me! Take care of her!!!” Medics can be heard in the video telling Delacruz that paramedics were working on Naiya and they were just there to bandage his wound.  He kept asking them about Naiya. “Tell me how she is, Man!” “ How’s my Naiya!!” he cried over and over.

The in car video showed an apparently intoxicated Delacruz lay down in the back seat of the patrol car and pass out.  Prosecutors skipped approximately two hours of the in-car video where Delacruz can be heard snoring

He was taken to the San Angelo Police Department from the scene and then taken to San Angelo Community Medical Center for treatment of the cut on the back of his left arm.  

Officer Hasty’s testimony was concluded and Judge Ben Woodward released him from the witness stand.  

WATCH Then-Chief of Police Tim Vasquez on the incident right after it happened on Sept 2, 2014:
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The bulk of the day Thursday included testimony and evidence from SAPD Crime Scene Investigator Samantha Schwartz who now works as an arson investigator for the San Angelo Fire Department.  On Sept. 2, 2014, she was a Crime Scene Technician for the San Angelo Police Department.

Photo of the daylight hours Sept. 2, 2014 as the CSI investigation of being conducted - The crime scene at 8:30 a.m. this morning, 2729 Houston Street, San Angelo, Texas. (LIVE! Photo/John Basquez):
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Schwartz brought a wagon full of physical evidence into the courtroom for jurors to see.  

Schwartz testified that she did an initial walk through the house with Officer Schneider.  Once she had seen the crime scene, she ordered no one else be allowed into the house until it had been processed.  

Schwartz testified that the child’s bedroom had, “an enormous amount of blood.”  She told the jury that at the direction of investigators, she placed 50 markers where blood evidence was present inside the house, outside the house and in Houston St.  

Prosecutors led Schwartz and the jury through photographs and locations of all 50 markers.  Schwartz testified that she took swabs of all 50 suspected blood locations and in addition gathered other physical evidence including:

  1. The mini-blind cord from the bathroom
  2. The bed comforter from the master bedroom
  3. The butcher knife
  4. The blanket in the living room
  5. Naiya’s slippers in the living room
  6. A backpack in the master bedroom
  7. A blood soaked rock found in the street
  8. The kitchen floor mat
  9. Broken glass from the bathroom in the backyard
  10. Naiya’s pillow and pillow case
  11. A purple care bear from Naiya’s bedroom
  12. Naiya’s bed sheet
  13. The paper towels in the living room
  14. The Elmo Doll from Naiya’s bedroom
  15. The rug from the living room
  16. A cut from the carpet in Naiya’s room
  17. A cut from the carpet in the living room
  18. The bathroom screen. 

Schwartz testified that she attempted to lift latent fingerprints from the bathroom window screen and a piece of broken glass collected in the backyard.  No viable, identifiable prints were found.

Schwartz testified that she delivered three different batches of evidence to the Department of Public Safety Crime Lab in Lubbock.  

After the lunch break on Thursday, Samantha Schwartz took the stand again.  DA Palmer had Schwartz showed physical evidence to the jury in a slow, deliberate, and painstakingly specific process.  

Schwartz would take a piece of evidence in a brown paper bag from her wagon.  She would describe the bag, where the evidence inside was collected, how many times it had been opened based on the secure tape on the bag, describe evidence inside the bag, and how that evidence was handled from the scene to the courtroom.

Late Thursday afternoon after Palmer and defense attorney Will Boyles had cross-examined Schwartz, she was released by District Judge Ben Woodward.  

Testimony resumes Friday morning with members of the Department of Public Safety Crime Lab in Lubbock where the evidence was delivered for forensic testing.  

Isidro Delacruz is facing the death penalty in connection with the murder of 5-year-old Naiya Villegas.   

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You mentioned they looked for fingerprints on the bathroom window and screen, did they say they found fingerprints on the knife?

The defense is excellent, from out of town, all seasoned, excellent lawyers. They will try to make mom the guilty one. They have already started.

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