Trial begins for man charged with stalking, killing UTA student – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

A homicide in Dallas County has been reset for Tuesday morning for Jorge Esparza, the man accused of stalking and killing his romantic rival.

Esparza pleaded not guilty in August 2020 to the shooting death of Ricardo Medina-Madriz.

The first day of testimony began with jurors hearing from the woman at the center of the case.

This is a retrial of the case. Back in April, when the trial began, the judge recused herself from Esparza's proceedings after comments she made about the case during court recess.

Their comments were made during the live broadcast of the trial on YouTube.

On Tuesday morning, Denise, the woman with whom Esparza was in love, spoke about her intimate and non-exclusive relationship with the defendant. Denise had just returned home from a date with Medina-Madriz on August 9, 2020.

Medina-Madriz, a registered nurse and graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, was shot near Denise's South Dallas home on Jeffries Street.

Esparza is also accused of stalking. While Esparza and Denise had not been together for months before the shooting, Esparza admitted during his interview with Dallas police that he had created at least ten Instagram accounts to contact her.

“It’s weird because she’ll talk to me. But as soon as I ask her why we don't go somewhere, like on a date or whatever, she blocks me,” Esparza said in the interrogation video.

In court, jurors were also shown the moment Esparza confessed to shooting Medina-Madriz just days after the shooting.

“Did you shoot him,” the detective asked Esparza.

“Yes,” Esparza said.

“How many times did you shoot him, George,” the detective asked.

“I want to say three,” Esparza said.

Esparza's lawyers questioned the interrogation video because only one bullet casing was found at the crime scene. Esparza pleaded not guilty and told the jury Tuesday that he was confused on the day of questioning.

“I told him something he wanted to hear because, again, I was confused about a lot of things,” Esparza said in court.

Esparza claimed he drove to Denise's house; However, he never intended to hurt anyone.

“August 9th is, I was supposed to kill myself that night,” Esparza said. “At some point I’ll go to Denise’s house because I wanted to apologize for everything.”

Testimony is scheduled to continue Wednesday morning.