Day Two of the Desiree’s Drive-By Shooting Trial showcased two witness testimonies for the prosecution. On trial is Wharton County resident Anthony Walters. He is charged with Deadly Conduct, Discharge of a Weapon by firing multiple .45 cal. Rounds into the structure of Desiree’s Gentlemen’s Club on Koenigheim and W. Washington St. in San Angelo on Mar. 20, 2014.
Before the witness testified, the morning was filled with the mundane task of checking in the evidence down to the last bullet or slug, as San Angelo Police Department Criminal Investigations Division technician Robin Johnson was grilled on the stand by the defense over the way she and the SAPD investigated the scene.
On cross-examination, the defense counsel Evan Pierce-Jones uncovered that there was no crime scene diagram, the crime scene was not secured, and the CID investigators didn’t dust the spent bullet casings for fingerprints. At one point, Pierce-Jones held up a textbook for criminal investigations, Shooting Incident Reconstruction by Michael G. Haag, and asked Johnson if she heard of it. She testified that she heard of it, but had not read it.
“The book suggests using ‘centering cones’ to make the rod point more correctly in the direction the bullet traveled,” Pierce-Jones said. CSI investigators use dowel rods pushed through bullet holes in the walls and air conditioning ducts to help demonstrate the trajectory of a bullet.
Pierce-Jones used a prosecution photo of a dowel rod drooping in the north side air conditioning duct to suggest that the rod placement by SAPD was not to be entirely trusted.
The prosecution was using Johnson’s testimony to demonstrate how one bullet entered the front entrance and penetrated a wall there to fly across the stripper stage and into the women’s restroom.
In the central photo of that demonstration, there was an actual stripper purportedly hanging onto a stripper pole. After sending the jury away for an objection over the photo, defense counsel Pierce-Jones argued that allowing the jury to see a stripper—a real, live person—in the photo was inflammatory. Prosecution wanted the photo to stand, arguing that the photo showed how dangerous shooting into occupied buildings is.
“Many of the jurors said they were abhorred by strippers,” Pierce-Jones said, arguing that the picture should be disallowed.
In a moment of humor, Judge Weatherby found a black marker and redacted the image of the stripper from the photo and allowed the photo to be shown to the jury.
The highlight of the day was testimony from former Desiree’s security guard Maurice “Mo” Payne when he took the stand for the prosecution.
Payne testified that he was the one who escorted two gentlemen, a white man and a Hispanic man, out of Desiree's the night of the incident. “They were touching the dancers,” Payne explained. At Desiree’s there is a rule that forbids touching the female performers.
Payne said the Hispanic man, later identified as Walter’s friend Jose Chinos, was the transgressor. “He was up in the VIP booth touching (her) during his VIP dance,” he said.
Payne said that after he led the two out the door, he went back into the office located in the southwest corner of the building. “About 15 minutes later, bullets came through the walls,” he said.
Next to testify was Jose Chinos himself. Chinos denied that he was the reason they two were kicked out of the club that evening. Chinos stated he was in the restroom during the time Walters was being asked to leave by Desiree’s security for allegedly touching the dancers.
Later in his testimony, Chinos said that it was Walters who fired at the club at approximately 11:20 p.m. that evening. “We didn’t even talk about it after it happened,” Chinos said, as he described their conversation grabbing food at McDonald’s prior to the long trip back to Big Lake that evening.
One the way home, Chinos said that Walters asked if he wanted to hold the gun. Chinos accepted the offer and held the gun, turning it over once in his hands, then returning it to Walters’s after.
The defense later asked Chinos to determine the location the two were during the trip home when he was handed the gun. He could not confirm a street name or location.
Both men returned to their trailer in Big Lake and that next day Chinos was detained and read his rights by the arresting officer. Chinos confirmed the claim from the prosecution that he could not answer the arresting officer’s questions about the shooting at that time.
The defense showed Chinos the credit card receipt with his credit card on it from the night and Desiree’s, and asked him to confirm if it was his signature scrawled on the receipt. Chinos claimed it wasn’t his signature and he recalled pulling cash from the ATM to pay the tab instead of paying with a credit or debit card.
Chinos also confirmed that both men had been drinking an unspecified amount of alcohol that night. This is what led the defense to believe that Chinos could not recall having handed his credit card to the bartender. Chinos said this was a possibility.
The trial continues at 9 a.m. today.
Key stats:
- Leading the prosecution: Assistant DA Richard Villarreal
- Leading the defense: San Angelo Attorney Evan Pierce-Jones
- Judge presiding: Judge Jay Weatherby
- Jurisdiction: State of Texas 391st District Court
Other news stories about the Desiree’s Drive-By Shooting:
- Desiree's Strip Club Drive-By Trial Begins (Mar. 22, 2016)
- Shots Fired at Desiree’s (initial report, Mar. 11, 2014)
- Desiree’s Shooter Apprehended (Mar. 17, 2014)
- Desiree’s Shooter Fired .45 Cal. Bullets (Mar. 11, 2014)
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