Testimony continues in trial of alleged Palm Springs cop-killer
Testimony continues Thursday in the trial of John Hernandez Felix. who is accused of fatally shooting Palm Springs Police Department officer Jose ‘Gil’ Vega and Lesley Zerebny in October 2016.
On Wednesday, testimony began after opening statements wrapped up. Jake Ingrassia was in Indio court covering the trial today and will be providing periodic updates on today’s proceedings.
Felix’s mother, Margarita, took the stand and answered questions this morning. Background was provided on the moments leading up to the alleged crime; Margarita said that although she didn’t know that her son had a weapon before the shooting, she did sense that something dangerous was going on.
Deputy District Attorney Michelle Paradise brought out the AR-15 which was showed in court by Deputy District Attorney Manny Bustamante during opening statements on Wednesday.
“He watched as Officer Zerebny made her way back to the patrol car. But before she could get there the defendant used this to shoot her in the back,” Bustamante said.
Felix’s mother said that she didn’t recognize the size or shape of the weapon, the case or bag it was held in, or the body armor that her son allegedly wore when he reportedly shot Zerebny and Vega.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JakeKESQ/status/1118932878639788032″,”author_name”:”Jake Ingrassia”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JakeKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Ms. Felix also didn’t recognize the body armor Felix reportedly wore. Prosecutors held that up too. &#lt;br&#gt;Prosecutors showed photos from inside Felix’s living room, including shell casings in the doorway he reportedly shot at officers through.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Jake Ingrassia (@JakeKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JakeKESQ/status/1118932878639788032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;April 18, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
It was also revealed during Thursday’s testimony that Ms. Felix had met Vega and Zerebny previously, that Vega was familiar with them, and that she begged them to not get close to the house before they were shot.
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Follow Jake Ingrassia’ full notes from court below:
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