Witnesses Detail the Night of the Gangland Executions at Trial

Daniel Uvalle remained studious in the courtroom on Wednesday, flipping through the pages of notebook his attorney had left on the table as witness after witness described his role in the double homicide that took place on Sept. 1, 2013. 

Uvalle, 18, is accused of killing 22-year-olds Tabitha Freeman and Alvaro Carrillo with co-defendant Johnny Garcia.

The trial, which began on Tuesday, almost didn’t resume at all on Wednesday, when defense counsel Melvin Gray announced that his co-counsel Fred Brigman was out ill.

After some discussion with his attorney, Uvalle agreed he’d like to proceed with the trial on Wednesday, which began as the state, represented by 51^st District Attorney Allison Palmer and Meagan White, called its first witness.

Approaching the stand, 25-year-old Daniel Weston explained the events of the night that led up to the shooting at 1516 Greenwood, room #11, an apartment he and Jesse Salazar shared with the victim.

“I was spending time with my girlfriend,” Weston said of the night of Aug. 31, 2013. “We went to the movies…we arrived at the apartment maybe around 11 or 12 at night and there was just a conflict over the phone with Alvaro and Johnny.”

At the apartment when Weston and Clayton arrived were Alavaro Carrillo, Jr. and his girlfriend Idalia Limon, Tabitha Freeman and Jesse Salazar, Weston and Clayton testified. Salazar was the main renter of the apartment, but Carrillo and Weston had both been living there for about a month at the time of the murders.

“We just, you know, just there amongst each other and Johnny and Daniel show up,” Weston said. “Daniel had a firearm…”

According to Weston, Uvalle and Garcia had entered through a sliding glass door in the living room that leads out onto the street. Weston testified that he’d seen Garcia before, but he didn’t know nor had he met Uvalle.

When Uvalle and Garcia entered and a verbal altercation turned physical over one of the couches, Idalia Limon, Carrillo’s girlfriend, awoke from her slumber on a mattress located next to the sliding glass door, she stated in court.

“[Daniel was] yelling and wielding a gun around,” Weston said. “The firearm was a chrome “9 or a .45”.

Adding to Weston’s story, Clayton expanded on the events in her subsequent testimony, stating she’d been in the bedroom changing when Uvalle, Garcia, and two other men, whom she did not know and could not identify, appeared in the living room. She recalled the weapon in detail.

“Alvaro was arguing with Johnny and Daniel had a pistol, like a 9mm,” she said. “It had infrared scope and a flashlight.”

Daniel Uvalle, she said, was “pointing it at everyone”.

While Garcia and Alvaro physically fought near the couch in the living room, Weston said Uvalle stood guard with his pistol.

“[Daniel was] holding the gun and making sure everything went accordingly…like back-up, acting as a team…” Weston testified.

As they fought, Weston was standing near a hallway next to the kitchen, which led back to the bedroom and the front door. In a small closet adjacent to the kitchen, Jessie Salazar kept a 12 gauge shotgun.

As Uvalle was distracted by the fight between Carrillo and Garcia, Weston went for the gun, he said, but was stopped by Uvalle.

“It was a black shotgun with a pump action, 12 gauge, one barrel…it had a handgrip...”

According to Weston, Uvalle noticed him retrieving the gun and followed him to the back bedroom where he set it down. He and Garcia then took the gun with them as they left, he said.

Clayton elaborated in her testimony, stating that once Weston retrieved the shotgun Uvalle pointed the pistol at him and asked “if he was trying to pull a gun on him, and he said, ‘No’”.       

Limon stated that in the midst of the commotion, “Daniel and Johnny kept asking where their gun was at,” and at some point, Salazar’s shotgun was taken by a man Limon identified as “Isaac” and was stashed under the back right tire of Johnny’s car.

All of the witnesses agreed that the fistfight was started and provoked by Garcia, however Carrillo turned out to have the upper hand and delivered several blows to Garcia who was pinned beneath him on the couch.

Still, Garcia did not stop provoking a fight, witnesses said. Carrillo, they stated, was trying to calm things down and get Garcia and Uvalle to leave.

“Johnny wanted to fight again and Alvaro was like, ‘Why? I already beat you up,’” Limon said.

Both Weston and his girlfriend, Mackendree Clayton, testified that they wanted to leave after the fight between Garcia and Carrillo, and stated that Weston then called friend Adam Hopper to come and pick them up.

Their testimonies diverged, however, when they explained when it was they had made their exit of the apartment into the parking lot, where they waited on Hopper.   

Clayton told the jury that as Uvalle was distracted by the fight between Carrillo and Garcia, she and Weston snuck out the sliding back door and waited for Hopper to arrive. In that time, she said, Garcia and Uvalle left the apartment as well in possession of the shotgun.

Weston stated that he and Clayton had remained in the apartment the entire time, unable to leave due to Uvalle and Garcia’s position in the apartment. Once they were gone, he said, both he and Clayton went outside, where they called and waited on Hopper.

Some 15 minutes later, they estimated, Hopper arrived and met them in the parking lot. Because Uvalle and Garcia had left, they said, Weston and Clayton went back inside to retrieve some of their belongings. In the meantime, Hopper left and returned some minutes later.

“They weren’t outside when I pulled back up to the apartments,” Hopper said. “I parked my truck, went inside the apartment…I took a seat on the loveseat next to Alvaro, and they’re sitting there discussing [what had just happened].”

According to Hopper, Weston and Clayton, they’d all sat in the living for just a few minutes to chat before they planned to leave and go back to Hopper’s house, where they would spend the night. According to Limon, Hopper had come for another purpose.

“Adam was just somebody Alvaro would sell to,” she said, adding that he had come over “to smoke” and that Jesse Salazar had just now gone to pick up Tabitha Freeman, who had not been there for the first altercation.

“About that time I saw the muzzle break the door,” Hopper said, explaining to the jury how he’d first noticed the barrel of the shotgun enter through the sliding glass door before Johnny Garcia, clad in a green bulletproof vest, and Daniel Uvalle, also carrying a shotgun, entered the living room.

Referencing a seating arrangement drawn by Clayton and by Weston, all of the witnesses described the scene that played out.

The sliding glass door was located parallel to the bottom of the page the DA displayed on a projector for the jury. On the left, a line was drawn to symbolize a wall, and a long rectangle with four circles drawn inside represented a couch where Makendree Clayton sat on the arm nearest the sliding door with Daniel Weston to her left. Jesse Salazar sat to the left of Weston, and to his left sat Tabitha Freeman.

At the edge of the first rectangle, a smaller rectangle was drawn perpendicular, facing the sliding glass door, and two more circles were drawn. In the circle nearest Tabitha Freeman sat Adam Hopper, and to his left sat Alvaro Carrillo.

Daniel Uvalle, the witnesses stated, stood in the center, but nearest the sliding glass door, while Johnny Garcia stood in front of Alvaro Carrillo.

Confusion as to what exactly happened next became apparent through the testimonies of the witnesses, who all stated that Uvalle more or less stood guard, holding everyone at gunpoint, while Garcia confronted Carrillo with the shotgun in his face.

Just after they entered, Clayton said she attempted to leave, but was stopped by Uvalle.

“I stood up, I was going to go outside, and Daniel Uvalle pointed the shotgun at me and I sat back down,” Clayton said.

Hopper, who testified that he only knew Weston, Clayton and Carrillo at the apartment that night, said that when the teenagers came in, they began threatening everybody. Garcia then turned his attention to Carrillo.

“They came in and Johnny went up to [Carrillo] and said, ‘What’s up? You trying to get merked?’” Limon stated, clarifying that “merked” means “killed”. “Johnny was just pointing the gun at him and I remember Daniel saying that if anybody gets in it, he’s going to take care of it.”

While this was going on, the witnesses stated, Carrillo was trying to talk to Garcia and get him to calm down, stating “they could talk about it in the morning”.  

At some point, Johnny began fidgeting with the gun but couldn’t get it to work, so he swapped with Uvalle.

“His compadre, Daniel Uvalle, was holding an over/under 12 gauge and they did a little swap,” Hopper testified. “He (Uvalle) was wiping that over/under down with a rag.”

The other witnesses confirmed the exchange, some stating Uvalle said something to the effect of “I got you” before handing off his weapon to Garcia.

Carrillo remained calm, Hopper said, and then Idalia Limon stepped between her boyfriend and the gun and began to plead for Garcia to stop.

“You better move, bitch,” Hopper said Garcia ordered. “I’m going to blow your head off, too!”

Alvaro Carrillo then stood up to push her out of the way and Garcia fired.

“He kind of fell over into my lap,” Hopper said. “He was shot.”

For those present, the gunfire played out rapidly and none completely realized what had happened. Clayton testified that she thought Alvaro Carrillo had dodged the bullet when Garcia pulled the trigger, because she saw him fall to the side. She never heard a second shot.

Weston said his eyes shut simultaneously with the gunfire, and that he hadn’t actually seen the shooting take place. Hopper’s ears rung.

Idalia Limon only felt the impact. “I felt him drop behind me,” she said, crying. “I felt him fall to the ground.”

Screaming and in self-described “shell shock”, Weston, Clayton and Hopper stated that they jumped up and ran out of the apartment with Jesse Salazar after Garcia shot Alvaro. Only Weston and Hopper heard the second shot that hit Tabitha Freeman. It was almost simultaneous, they said.

Realizing what he had done, Limon said she went up to Garcia who pushed the barrel of the gun into her chest, which was still hot from the gunfire. She pushed it away. Then she asked why he’d done it, why he’d killed one of his best friends.

“I don’t know if it was him or Johnny, but I heard them say, ‘because there were orders,’” Limon said.

Garcia and Uvalle then left, fleeing out the back door with the weaponry they’d brought into the house that night.

She looked down at Carrillo and, “I just picked up his face,” she told the court, crying and wiping her tears with a tissue. “I was looking at his face. I was crying. I couldn’t do nothing about it.”

In cross-examination, defense attorney Melvin Gray asked the witnesses if they could remember any specific statements made by Uvalle that were meant to encourage or incite Garcia to shoot Freeman, Carrillo or the others.

No one could quote Uvalle saying anything of that nature, but all stated that his involvement prevented them from fleeing the residence, and noted that he hadn’t objected or tried to flee during any of the violence.

Investigation

After calling eyewitnesses, District Attorney Allison Palmer called Forensic Pathologist Dr. Stephen Pustilnik to the stand, who had performed the autopsies on both Carrillo and Freeman.

Warning the jury of the graphic nature of photographs taken during the autopsies, Palmer displayed first shots of Carrillo, then those of Freeman, as Pustilnik explained what his examinations returned.

“He had a significant amount of trauma to his face,” Pustilnik said as the first image, an identifying photograph of Carrillo’s head, was projected onto the screen.

Gasps and weeps broke out in the courtroom, and several family members stood to leave before the next photograph was displayed.

Pustilnik explained that the shot had entered on the left side of Carrillo’s mouth and exited on the right side, as Palmer brought up the next photograph.

“He died from a shotgun wound to the face,” Pustilnik said.

In the middle of his testimony, a large, stocky man in jeans and a light blue button-down shirt walked down the aisle to the gallery with his fists balled and a look of disgust on his face. He was heading straight for Uvalle.

All of the sudden, bailiffs and officers leapt up, Uvalle turning and shrinking back as the man turned and walked down the front row, then back to the door and exited.

Gossett warned the audience that if they wanted to leave, this was the time, and several more men and women quickly exited the courtroom.

As Pustilnik continued, he explained that due to the injury and the areas affected, Carrillo could have lived for up 20 minutes after being hit, either completely incapacitated and conscious, completely incapacitated and unconscious, or he could have died immediately.

Carrillo suffered damage to the central nervous system and the brain stem, he said. He was shot at point blank range.

Tabitha Freeman, Pustilnik continued, died of a shotgun wound to the chest that shattered several ribs, destroyed her heart and punctured her liver, stomach and kidneys.

Her death was likely very painful due to where she was hit, he said, but estimated that she would have died within 90 seconds of the gunshot. She died of a loss of blood internally.

Following the double-homicide, detectives with the San Angelo Police Department worked through the night until they had identified and located both suspects.

Johnny Garcia was picked up in Kimble County just outside of Boerne, where he was held until detective Lynn Dye and Antoine Callum picked him up that day, Sept. 1.

Daniel Uvalle was located in Grape Creek, where he was hiding out in a trailer home that was a known residence of his friend Miguel Angel Hernandez and his girlfriend, Ariel Gonzalez.

When detective Chris Chappa entered the residence, he found Uvalle standing on the bed in a room, trying to exit through the window. He was taken into custody the afternoon of Sept. 1.

In subsequent searches of the property, detectives located a handgun in an air duct, and two spent shotgun shells with a red Duarte Family Reunion shirt in a dumpster whose contents had recently been burned.

Judge Gossett ended Wednesday’s testimony at this point, adhering to a strict schedule that promised to have the jury out by five.

In a suppression hearing in the jury’s absence, Gray and Palmer discussed a recorded interview conducted by detective Brian Elkins with Daniel Uvalle at the police department.

Palmer declared that she intends to play the file, which may include a confession, but in the absence of Fred Brigman, a decision was not reached on whether or not to allow it to be heard by the jury. Brigman had previously objected to certain portions of the audio file, Palmer said.

At just after 5 p.m., court adjourned for the afternoon and is slated to resume at 9 a.m. on Thursday. The state still has approximately three witnesses to call, before the defense may make its case. It is anticipated that they will be able to conclude the guilt-innocence portion of the trial Thursday.