A young girl and her mother entered the Austin Police Department’s main office a year and a half ago to warn officers that a 16-year-old boy had shot and killed another adolescent the day before. They claimed to be able to provide directions to the automobile where the victim’s body had been dumped.
Soon after, in Bell County, authorities discovered that the victim, Rigo Dominguez, also 16 years old, was in the trunk of an abandoned vehicle.
The teen kid was found guilty of Dominguez’s murder in Travis County and of moving and abandoning his body in Bell County by a jury on Friday.
In Travis County, this was the first juvenile jury trial in the previous ten years. Plea agreements are the norm in most circumstances.
Judge Rhonda Hurley of the state district court agreed to let the American-Statesman observe the trial under the condition that the suspect’s name not be made public. Criminal histories for minors are kept private.
After the defense team and the prosecution have presented more evidence, Hurley will sentence the suspect at a later time.
The young woman who initially contacted the police was the main focus of the defense’s case for the suspect.
The tales we’ve heard this week, according to Travis County’s juvenile public attorney Kameron Johnson, “are not plausible.” “They lack credibility. They lack confirmation. Just refer to them as what they are. They are untrue.”
Read More: A Plane Carrying 53 Dogs And Three People Crashes Into A Golf Course
The young woman visited Walmart the day of the murder and bought cleaning supplies, according to the CCTV footage from the shop, a day before calling the police. She did not acknowledge traveling to Walmart until Johnson showed her the footage while she was describing to the jury what she did on the day of the murder.
Johnson claimed that the prosecution “crafted a case on someone who is not believable, who is not trustworthy.”
The clean-up is all that Walmart stuff, the prosecutor, Rickey Jones, told the jury. “It makes no difference who fired the shot,”
According to the prosecution, the woman received testimonial immunity. On the witness stand, nothing she said could be used against her. Prosecutor Alicia Crowley to the jury that the defendant “told her he’d slain a boy and he needed her aid.”
Investigators discovered bloodied clothing and jewelry that belonged to Dominguez under the baby sister’s bed after the mom called the police. The blood on the clothes had a very high likelihood of being the victim’s blood, according to DNA tests.
Jones argued to the jury that “Rigo’s mom demands justice.” “Justice is needed for his unborn son, whom he never met.”
Read More:
