Eye Witness and Defendant's Mother Called to Stand in Trend Furniture Trial

When Tom Green County Sheriff’s Detective Ray Mallas and other investigators entered Mark Anthony Serrano’s home on Nov. 20, 2013 to execute a search warrant, they immediately found inventory, later identified, as items stolen from Trend Furniture.

Describing his findings to the jury seated in Judge Walther’s court Wednesday, Detective Mallas pointed to a decorative metal tower on a photograph projected on to a screen in the court.

“In the first room we found a hair dryer, a razor blade and a tag that said ‘cherry armoire,’” he said, pointing out a red blow dryer and scraper sitting on one of the tower’s tiers.

“The scraper and the hair dryer were used to remove the adhesive [from a sticker] without tearing the furniture up.”

For the next hour and a half, Mellas testified on the investigation, pointing out items in more than 60 photos the investigators had located in four different homes and buildings in and around San Angelo.

One of those locations was Serrano’s mother’s house, and after a break for lunch and testimony from Trend owner Kristie Reed, the state called the defendant’s mother, Selema Serrano, to the witness stand.

While she couldn’t remember the exact date (Nov. 20, 2013), Ms. Serrano stated she recalled the investigators coming to her house one evening and inviting them inside. Once they were present, she consented to a search of her property.

“Mark had asked me if he could use the storage building (in the backyard) to put some things in there,” she told the jury. “He came over and I got the keys and went back there with him.”

When the detectives appeared on her doorstep roughly a week later, they were specifically interested in the red and white barnlike storage building out back, she said. After they asked to view the contents, Ms. Serrano retrieved the keys and opened the door. That evening, several pieces of furniture—including sofas and other pieces—were removed from her residence and taken to a secure warehouse operated by the Sheriff. The items had been reported stolen.

Asked if she was surprised when her son came to her asking to use the storage space, Ms. Serrano said: “I asked him where he had gotten it, and he told me he had bought it. [I asked] because there were a lot of things in there.”

Although she had questioned her son, when Ms. Serrano was prompted by defense attorney Shawntell McKillop, she stated that his asking to store things and having furniture in his possession was not out of character.

“He repairs things,” she said, describing how her son makes a living. “Usually he’ll buy things at garage sales…He works with his hands. He repairs furniture, he paints things. Buy, sell and fix: that’s what he does.”

After her son had left her house the evening he unloaded, she said, she went outside to make sure the building was locked and discovered that a sofa had been left outside in the backyard. “I knew it was going to rain and I thought Mark had bought these things, so I brought it inside,” she said.

That evening, the couch, which had been covered in decorative pillows stolen from other chairs and sofas and set up in Ms. Serrano’s house, was seized along with the other wares. Kristie Reed, the owner of Trend Furniture, and her son Bobbie, then went to the residence to identify the items.

As part of her testimony, Ms. Serrano stated that Mark had not appeared alone at her house that night, but in the company of a man she’d never seen before who was driving a truck and trailer. She couldn’t remember the make or model, however she wasn’t the only one to mention the duo in relation to the case.

Another one of the locations searched was an approximately 8,000 square-foot storage building on Templin Road, used by Brent Wilcox as office and storage space for his company. On the witness stand Wednesday, Wilcox testified that he’d received a phone call from Detective Mellas on Dec. 9, 2013 regarding some furniture that may be stored in the building. Wilcox said he was out of town at the time but returned to San Angelo a few days later to tell the detective “I think I have what you’re looking for.”

According to Wilcox, only one person had access to his warehouse aside from him, and that person was co-defendant Heath Chesser, who had asked him around the beginning of November if he could store some items there.

“I’ve known him for about eight years now,” Wilcox testified. “He said, ‘I need to store some household items. Would it be ok if I store them here?'”

Wilcox said he agreed to let Chesser use the space for a limited time, but wasn’t aware exactly what it was he’d be storing, and hadn’t seen the items prior to being called by Mellas.

“It didn’t surprise me that Heath Chesser would have something like this,” he said. “I had known him for years and he was always buying and selling, wheeling and dealing.”

Prompted by state attorney John Best, Wilcox described Chesser’s vehicle as a charcoal gray Ford F-250 crew cab with a lift kit. When the state called Anna D. Thomas, an employee of American British Antiques (ABA) to the stand, the description of Chesser’s truck surfaced again, along with a description of Serrano.

Thomas stated that on the night of Nov. 13, 2013, she was at ABA, located at 746 S. U.S. Highway 87, when she repeatedly observed a vehicle go by pulling a trailer. Thomas said she resides on the property and frequently stays up late to check things out at night due to a history of break-ins.

“I noticed a red Tahoe pulling a trailer pass by American British Antiques about four or five times,” she said. “Finally, I got in my car and followed the…Tahoe.”

Thomas said she followed the vehicle through several intersections before it finally pulled over next to a black 4-wheel-drive truck with a lift kit. It was roughly 4:00 a.m., she said. Pulling up to the other side of the truck, Thomas said she rolled down her window and spoke to the driver of the truck while the passenger of the truck spoke to the driver of the Tahoe.

Although she didn’t know the driver or passenger of the truck, she did state that she believed the man behind the wheel of the Tahoe was Mark Anthony Serrano. In the police report filed after the run-in, Thomas never firmly stated that she had identified Serrano, only that it looked like him. His passenger was unknown.

After asking the driver if he needed help and telling him that she’d called the police, Thomas drove back to ABA, but few minutes later, the Tahoe appeared again.

“I followed it down Christoval Road to Paint Rock Road,” she said. “I followed it to a house.” Thomas could not state the address she’d driven to the night of the incident, however said she’d dropped off Aaron Wilde, a co-defendant who had sold her antiques in the past, a couple of times at Serrano’s house.

As they approached what Thomas believes to be Serrano’s residence, the Tahoe pulled over into a parking lot across the street from the house and Thomas kept driving. After about a block, she said, she turned around to drive back at them, nearly hitting the Tahoe’s passenger, who had climbed out of the vehicle and was crossing the street to the residence. The driver, she said, stayed in the car.

Thomas said that she knows Serrano through Wilde, who had brought him in a day after they met. She said he was only in her store once, but mentioned occasionally dropping Wilde off at Serrano’s residence because she felt sorry for him.

Wednesday evening, Thomas identified Serrano in the court and stated she was fairly sure he’d been driving the Tahoe that night, although she hadn’t submitted that in her statement to police. She is so far the first witness that can place Serrano at the scene at the time when the break-in occurred.

Following hours of testimony, the jury was dismissed at roughly 6:10 p.m. There are still several witnesses to be called in the trial, which continues Thursday at 9:00 a.m.