A prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that evidence will show that a Los Angeles man was involved in a series of carjackings within less than a week, including one in Pico Rivera in which a 13-year-old girl died, while a defense attorney countered that his client committed some of the offenses but said he would ask them to acquit the defendant of other charges.
Jose Elias Aguilar, now 30, is charged with one count each of murder and corporal injury to a child, two counts of attempted kidnapping during a carjacking, five counts of kidnapping for carjacking and 10 counts of carjacking.
The most serious charge of murder involves the July 5, 2020, death of Isabella Cortes.
In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa told the Norwalk jury that Isabella and her three siblings waited inside the family’s 2012 silver Toyota Sienna mini-van which was left running with the air conditioning on at the curb near La Mano Tortilleria while their parents went inside the business on Whittier Boulevard.
Two of the children were able to get out of the mini-van, with the other two remaining in it as it was allegedly driven away by Aguilar, according to the prosecutor.
The vehicle was being driven erratically, causing one of the boys to be ejected from the vehicle and be seriously injured, Villa told jurors. Shortly afterward, the girl was ejected from the mini-van, slid and hit head-first into a fire hydrant, causing her death, according to the prosecutor.
Aguilar was also allegedly involved in three other carjackings, including one within less than an hour of the carjacking in Pico Rivera and two others on July 2, 2020, Villa told jurors.
The defendant was tackled and detained by a group of street vendors after crashing the vehicle from the final carjacking, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Randy Na told the jury that he expected that the prosecution would be able to persuade them on charges involving some of the crimes.
But he told jurors that he would “ask you to find Jose not guilty of some of the charges.”
He urged jurors not to allow their emotions to overwhelm them, saying that some of the evidence would be gruesome.
Aguilar’s attorney said the jury will hear testimony that his client had methamphetamine in his system, adding that one of the victims in the final carjacking said her assailant didn’t look at her or acknowledge her presence.
As testimony began, jurors heard the emotional accounts from Isabella’s sister, who was 17 at the time, and the girl’s parents.
Alexia Cortes testified that she and her younger siblings had opted to stay in the van because it was too hot outside that day and that a man she didn’t know jumped in the van and said, “Vamanos,” which she noted is Spanish for “let’s go.”
The young woman, who’s now 21, testified that she got up and tried to get the man out of the vehicle and that her siblings were trying to assist her. She said she opened the van’s sliding door and fell out, and subsequently saw one of her younger brothers on the street but didn’t see how he had gotten there.
The victim’s older sister testified that she tried to stop other cars to seek help, and that she ran to the front of the business and yelled for assistance. She said through tears that she told her parents as they emerged from the business that the van had been taken away and that Isabella and one of her brothers were still in the vehicle.
She said the family subsequently found Isabella and her brother.
“I knew it was her,” she said of her sister, whom she said was on the ground and already covered with a blanket. “I tried to get to her. A lady held me back saying that I should not see her.”
Isabella’s mother, Kenia Gonzalez, testified through tears that she saw her daughter “laying down, bleeding, already covered with a blanket.”
“I asked them to help her,” she said of the paramedics’ arrival at the scene.
She said she was told that her daughter was “already dead” and that there was “nothing they could do for her.”
She said her 7-year-old son — who was found nearby — suffered a head injury, was hospitalized for a week and has experienced learning difficulties, including not being able to memorize things since then.
Isabella’s father, Jorge Cortes, told jurors that he knew two of his children were still inside the van after it was driven away, and ran in the hopes that he could find someone to give him a ride. He said he hugged his 7-year-old son upon finding him further up the street and took him into a nearby flower shop, but didn’t realize the extent of the boy’s injuries at that time.
One of the victims of the July 2, 2020, carjacking in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot testified that she pepper-sprayed her assailant after he used a weapon resembling a machete to shatter a window in her black BMW, but eventually had to crawl out of the passenger side with a friend to escape the vehicle before it was driven away.
She testified that she couldn’t identify her assailant in court, but acknowledged she had circled a photo of one man — later identified in court as Aguilar — because she “felt like that was the guy.”
Aguilar has remained behind bars without bail since his arrest by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on July 5, 2020, jail records show.