Fingerprints on a shell casing from a stolen gun played into the Thursday arrest of Monica Vigil's ex-boyfriend in her Nov. 2 shooting death.
Jason Richard Garcia, 18, Murray, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Thursday afternoon and arraigned via video camera from the jail Friday morning.Third Circuit Judge Michael Hutchings read the criminal homicide charge to Garcia during the two-minute arraignment. Garcia did not comment on the charge.
Hutchings ordered Garcia to ap
pear before Judge Phillip Palmer Dec. 21. Garcia's attorneys, Ken Brown and James Bradshaw, said they plan to file a motion to have Garcia's $250,000 bail reduced.
"Jason has cooperated in every step of the process," Bradshaw said. "We're confident when the truth comes out he will be acquitted of these charges."
In the meantime, Vigil's mother, Ann Stewart, said the charge against Garcia helps her deal with the anxiety. "My only relief is that her shooter has been caught," she said. Stewart was notified of the arrest by Murray Police Lt. Dee Rowland shortly after Garcia was taken into custody. "That's just basically the first step in trying to get on with our lives."
Police considered Garcia a potential suspect the day Vigil, 17, was shot three times about 3:45 a.m. while in the front bedroom of her great-grandmother's Murray home.
But police also investigated whether the shooting may have been to silence Vigil, who was a witness to the Sept. 1 gang-related shooting of her 17-year-old uncle, Aaron Chapman, outside the Triad Amphitheater. Former West High football captain Asi Mohi, 17, stands accused in Chapman's death and is also in jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.
Stewart, who is Chapman's sister, said she suspected Garcia all along. Vigil and Garcia had dated and broken up numerous times. Vigil kept personal notes in a calendar and wrote over and over about breaking up with Garcia, Vigil's mother said.
Then just days before she was killed, Vigil wrote in her calendar "Jason and I have broken up for good this time," Stewart said.
During the first week of September, Vigil told a close friend Garcia had called her, saying that if he couldn't have her no one would.
And Vigil said Garcia was the attacker in a March 12 assault with a knife she reported to Murray police.
"All along, I kept saying `It was Jason. It was Jason.' I always knew," Stewart said. "I never did get to know him. I think it was because he was violent and something she knew we wouldn't approve of."
Thursday's arrest squelched the theory that Vigil had been assassinated because of her role in the prosecution against Mohi. That has softened Stewart's concern for other potential witnesses. "All of the kids that Aaron were close to had been threatened with their lives. I feel a little bit of ease for them, although I'm not going to put my guard down."
Salt Lake County Attorney David Yocom said he is also relieved the killing does not appear to have been retaliation against a court witness. "I'm greatly relieved about that," he said. "It will benefit future cooperation" from witnesses, he said.
Still, several witnesses in the Mohi case are being protected and two are staying away from Salt Lake City for the time being. Stewart said, "They're still out of town and they should stay there until they've testified and it's over with."
Murray Police Chief Ken Killian said his department's investigation, assisted by a number of other agencies, included interviews with 198 people, about 60 of whom are known to have gang connections. "The investigation by the Murray City police department found no evidence that the murder was gang-related or that it involved the killing of a witness to prevent her from testifying in any existing case."
Stewart said she has been taking careful notes at court hearings surrounding her brother's death. And she said police have given her some idea what is ahead in the case against Garcia.
Perhaps there will be a book someday. Stewart said she is already contacting talk shows to see if she can get an audience for her message. "I just don't want everybody to forget what the tragedy has cost. It is two senseless, senseless killings of two very good kids. I'm not going to just go to trial and then forget about it. My message is to get parents to pay attention to their kids - to start reading between the lines."
After Vigil was killed, police found several spent 9mm shell casings both inside and outside the window of the bedroom she occupied while living with her great-grandmother. They believe the shooter stood outside the house and fired at Vigil through the window toward the bed, which was just 18 inches away.
According to the probable cause statement in court documents charging Garcia with the shooting, police found two expended bullets, three 9mm shell casings and one live 9mm shell at the shooting scene.
Police interviewed Mohammad Moeinvaziri, whose 9mm Llama handgun was stolen from his apartment next door to where Garcia lives with his parents. Moeinvaziri said Garcia had been in his apartment Oct. 4, the day of the theft.
Officers also located the gun's previous owner,who was able to give police cartridges he had fired in the gun and then kept to reload. The State Crime Lab compared those cartridges with the ones found at the murder scene and concluded they had been fired from the same gun, the court information states.
Police also interviewed a friend of Garcia, who told officers he was with Garcia when the two bought a box of 9mm Ultra Max bullets.
On Nov. 29, officers found two bullets in the friend's car that had scratch marks apparently made by loading them in a weapon and then removing them. A box of Ultra Max 9mm ammunition was also found in the car.
The crime lab reported finding Garcia's fingerprints on the ammunition box, on the bullet found on Vigil's bedroom window sill and hand prints on and outside the window.
Deseret News staff writer Brian West contributed to this report.