Prosecution rests in trial of man accused of kidnapping, killing Moreno Valley teen

The prosecution rested today in the trial of a man accused of abducting and killing a 17-year-old Moreno Valley girl more than eight years ago.

Jesse Perez Torres, 42, could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder and jurors find true a special circumstance allegation of killing in the course of a kidnapping for the July 2010 death of Norma Angelica Lopez.

Prosecutors this morning summoned three law enforcement witnesses, each of whom testified briefly, after which the government announced that it had concluded its case.

The defense is slated to open its case on March 4 at the Riverside Hall of Justice. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz instructed jurors to continue to adhere to his earlier admonition not to talk about the case, but otherwise freed them to do whatever they needed over the next nearly two weeks until testimony resumes.

It is unknown whether Torres, who’s being held without bail, will take the stand.

The prosecution alleges that trace DNA fragments gleaned from Norma’s broken earring and garments revealed that Torres was her killer.

No DNA matches were initially found in the state’s Combined DNA Index System, better known as CODIS. But Deputy District Attorney Michael Kersse said that changed by September 2011, when potential matches were identified out of the 1.8 million individuals whose biological identities were in the database.

The prosecutor alleged that Torres was the best match, culminating in his detention by sheriff’s detectives, who found him at a Long Beach property owned by his mother. The defendant had been required to provide DNA samples after a domestic violence incident in early 2011.

At the outset of the trial, defense attorney John Dorr repudiated the prosecution’s contention that the DNA presented a substantive link between his client and the crime.

“There were 24 potential DNA matches,” Dorr told the jury. “You will hear nothing about the other 23, who they are, or their criminal backgrounds.”

The attorney criticized the handling of the forensic clues collected from the victim’s earring, suggesting it had been contaminated by evidence technicians.

Riverside County’s chief pathologist, Dr. Mark Fajardo, testified that he could only speculate as to exactly how Norma was killed, though he eventually formed an opinion that it was homicidal violence.

“There are a number of ways to kill someone without leaving a mark,” the witness testified. “Strangulation or asphyxiation is possible.”

Fajardo testified that the teen’s remains were in a degraded state after being left under a tree along Theodore Street, at the eastern edge of Moreno Valley, amid sweltering heat. She was nude from the waist up, wearing blue jeans but no shoes.

Fajardo testified that he found possible bruising on each of her hands, though he couldn’t be certain. However, he was able to confirm multiple bruises on her left shin, right and left thighs, which Kersse suggested may have been “finger pad impressions” from someone using force against the
victim.

During the internal half of the exam, the doctor found evidence of significant bleeding in the left side of Norma’s chest, but the collection did not stem from a stab wound or bullet, he said.

“There was some type of blunt force impact to that area, but I don’t know what,” Fajardo said.

Kersse told jurors that Torres could easily have observed Norma from his then-residence at 13173 Creekside Way, watching her whenever she left Valley View High School, where she was taking a morning biology class for the summer.

Every day that she’d left the campus for several weeks, she had been with her boyfriend. But on the morning of July 15, 2010, he was behind schedule, and Norma set off on her own. She headed south on Creekside, east to Quail Creek Drive, then south again on Mill Creek Road before crossing an open
field toward Cottonwood Avenue, where her older sister, Sonia Lopez, and friends gathered almost daily that summer.

Kersse played a security surveillance videotape from a house looking down on Creekside, and the recording captured the last images of Norma alive, walking the route.

The tape also showed, moments later, a green SUV cruising slowly in the direction that Norma was walking, shortly after 10 a.m. The vehicle re-appears less than five minutes later, speeding away from the area. According to the prosecution, Torres owned a green Nissan Xterra at the time.

Norma’s school binder, purse and broken earring were found about noon strewn on the ground in the field near Cottonwood. Five days later, her remains were discovered in the olive tree grove by a man on a tractor, doing landscaping around his property.