Jurors were handed the case Tuesday against a Los Angeles man charged with being involved in a series of carjackings within less than a week, including one in Pico Rivera in which a 13-year-old girl died.
The Norwalk jury is set to begin its deliberations Wednesday morning in the trial of Jose Elias Aguilar, who 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.
Attorneys focused much of their closing arguments on the most serious charge of murder involving the July 5, 2020, death of Isabella Cortes, who struck a fire hydrant head-on after plunging from the family’s Toyota Sienna minivan.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa urged the panel to find the 30-year-old defendant guilty of first-degree murder and to find true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a carjacking, while defense attorney Randy Na argued that the prosecution had not proven either the first-degree murder charge or the special circumstance allegation.
The prosecutor called the defendant “a wanton, willful killer” and said he carjacked a van full of “kids” as it 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.
Aguilar drove at an excessive rate of speed, with witnesses describing him weaving in and out of traffic and a deputy medical examiner concluding that the girl’s injuries were more consistent with a freeway-type speed, according to the prosecutor.
“He’s a car thief and he likes to do it right from people,” the prosecutor said of Aguilar. “That is who he is.”
The deputy district attorney also urged jurors to find Aguilar guilty of charges stemming from three other carjackings, including one within less than an hour after the teenage girl’s death along with two on July 2, 2020.
Aguilar’s attorney, meanwhile, urged the panel to “take the emotion out of this case” and to “make the right and just decisions,” questioning whether his client had a “specific goal” to take people or simply to take a vehicle and drive away.
Na said the prosecution had to show that his client personally committed an act that directly caused her death.
He argued that it was reasonable to believe that the teenager jumped or stepped out of the minivan in an effort to flee shortly after the vehicle was taken, contending that her three siblings had already escaped from the minivan.’
The defense lawyer noted that jurors could consider the lesser charge of second-degree murder.
Na noted that a blood test done hours after the girl’s death showed methamphetamine in Aguilar’s system, arguing that his client was “high” and “detached” and that the drug impairs a person’s ability to rationally think and act.
In his rebuttal argument, the prosecutor countered, “He’s the cause of her death. Find him accountable.”
During the trial, jurors saw surveillance video from a nearby flower shop showing the minivan’s sliding back door open and the girl sliding on the sidewalk into the fire hydrant. At least one juror was seen wiping one of her eyes after the video was shown, and a courtroom bailiff handed another juror a facial tissue.
Jurors also heard the emotional testimony of 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 is 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.
Jurors also heard from two other women, including a woman who was carjacked in downtown Los Angeles and a mother who testified that she retrieved her autistic, non-verbal son when he came out of the vehicle after her two daughters were seen falling to the ground in footage captured by a nearby surveillance camera.
The defendant was tackled and detained by a group of street vendors after crashing the vehicle from the final carjacking, according to the prosecutor.
A licensed pharmacist called by the defense during its portion of the case testified that the level of methamphetamine in Aguilar’s blood would have been higher hours before the testing, but said she couldn’t opine on exactly when the drug was ingested.
Aguilar has remained behind bars without bail since his arrest by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on July 5, 2020, jail records show.