Quintanilla's brother pushed for his involvement in 2021 murder – The Vacaville Reporter

For the second time in as many days of trial, Marco Antonio Quintanilla, charged with aiding and abetting an October 2021 murder in Fairfield involving his sister, testified Tuesday in Solano County Superior Court, with prosecutors calling him out for contradictory statements harassed the investigators.

During the morning session in Division 11 and into the early afternoon, Assistant District Attorney Ilana Shapiro continued cross-examining Quintanilla, who resumed his testimony, telling her that when he “heard about the murder, I thought it was a joke.” “

Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, allegedly shot Leilani Beauchamp, 19, of Carmel, on the morning of Oct. 30 at a home on Cascade Lane while she was in bed with Juan Parra-Peralta, whom Quintanilla once dated was a romantic relationship. Her 30-year-old brother, also from Pittsburg, is charged with aiding and abetting.

Shapiro also repeatedly showed the jury video clips of Marco Quintanilla speaking with Fairfield police officers Dennis Chapman and Ray Hamilton, distributing transcripts of each to the 12 jurors and two alternates who could watch them.

At some point, in a video recording of a Nov. 2, 2021 interview, Marco Quintanilla appeared to renege on his recollection of a conversation with Parra-Peralta on Oct. 30, while Parra-Peralta, then 21 and a former airman, was at Travis Air Force Base, sat in his Cadillac.

Marco Quintanilla's defense attorney, Laurie Savill, a San Francisco-based attorney, frequently objected to Shapiro's questions and statements.

“When you told the officers I thought they were joking, that was a lie,” Shapiro said.

He denied her claim.

She pointed out that some evidence suggests that Marco Quintanilla, previously convicted of attempted murder in August 2013 in Contra Costa County, said, “I don't want anyone to know about this,” an apparent indication that he knew about the crime and was allegedly concerned about his possession of a firearm related to the crime.

Marco Quintanilla admitted that he lied to Chapman and Hamilton during the Nov. 2 interview, Shapiro said, and then, by zooming in on a grid of cell phone calls and text messages, showed jurors the number of calls between him and his sister on the 30th. October, the day Jessica Quintanilla and Parra-Peralta loaded Beauchamp's body into the Cadillac and drove to a country road near Salinas, where Parra-Peralta dumped her body, wrapped in a blanket, on a hillside.

“You stated that you were arrested and you had no idea why,” Shapiro said.

“Yes,” Marco Quintanilla, bearded and dressed in a brown shirt and black tie over black pants.

Outside the jury's presence, Shapiro showed a clip suggesting he had lied during an interview on November 1, and Savill objected, citing Section 352 of the Evidence Code, adding that her client had already admitted that he lied during the interview on November 1st. 1 interview. The section allows a judge to exclude evidence if there is a greater likelihood that its admission would take too much time, create undue prejudice, confuse the facts or mislead the jury.

Savill claimed that many of Marco Quintanilla's statements were “not real lies”.

During the afternoon session, Shapiro continued to show more video clips of the investigators' taped interviews, including one in which the Quintanillas sat alone in the interview room and she appeared to call Parra-Peralta an “af—ing liar.”

Parra-Peralta, the first witness to testify during the trial, said that after the shooting, Jessica Quintanilla forced him to clean up the bedroom where the shooting occurred and drove the Beauchamp's body to the side of the road in Salinas at gunpoint.

On Thursday, Marco Quintanilla admitted that a new shovel that his sister and Parra-Peralta purchased at a San Jose Home Depot, as well as a semi-automatic pistol purchased in early October, later ended up at his home on Oct. 30.

He replied to Savill during their direct examination that he would not have taken the gun or the shovel if he had known they were involved in a crime.

During her questioning, Shapiro repeatedly told Marco Quintanilla that he was lying, including, based on Parra-Peralta's previous statements, this statement: “If something happens to her, something will happen to you.”

He denied the statement.

Marco Quintanilla also wasn't sure whether his sister said to him, “We shot someone” or “He shot someone.”

But Marco Quintanilla also often responded to Shapiro's questions with the words: “I don't remember.”

Shapiro's cross-examination of Jessica Quintanilla on Wednesday forced the defendant to admit that she was hungover from the previous night's party and upset with her former boyfriend.

Shapiro said that on Oct. 30, Jessica Quintanilla entered the second-floor bedroom of a Cascade Lane home that Parra-Peralta was renting. She was there to pick up some of her personal items, but Jessica Quintanilla testified that she did not know Beauchamp was there.

Quintanilla testified that she argued with Parra-Peralta but denied that she was yelling, as Shapiro said, adding that she was “loud.”

Shapiro repeatedly pressed Quintanilla on her memory of what happened just before a single bullet entered Beauchamp's head and killed her.

Beauchamp, Shapiro said, was lying naked in bed, was vulnerable, had no weapon and was not threatening, which Jessica Quintanilla confirmed.

However, Shapiro elaborated on Quintanilla's possible state of mind, claiming that Quintanilla was angry about seeing Parra-Peralta with a woman she had told him “not to hang out with” and had nothing on social media about Beauchamp post. The prosecutor showed Quintanilla printed copies of text threads on social media.

If convicted, Jessica Quintanilla faces 25 years to life in prison and possibly more time for using a firearm. And if convicted on the felony charge, Marco Quintanilla, who posted bail and was released after his arrest in 2021, could face up to three years in prison and possibly more time as a previously convicted felon, depending on the circumstances of the case Violation of his probation.

In its fifth week, the trial continues Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Division 11 at the Justice Center in Fairfield.