Quintanilla's brother questioned about role in 2021 murder in Fairfield – The Vacaville Reporter

Marco Antonio Quintanilla, who is accused of involvement in an October 2021 murder of his sister in Fairfield, took the witness stand Thursday and testified that he told investigators everything he knew about the crime.

His attorney, Laurie Savill of San Francisco, asked Quintanilla whether his sister, Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, told him on Oct. 31, “We killed someone.”

Marco Quintanilla viewed the statement as a joke, he said during the afternoon session in Department 11 of Solano County Superior Court in Fairfield.

Jessica Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, allegedly shot Leilani Beauchamp, 19, of Carmel, on the morning of Oct. 30 as she lay in bed with Juan Parra-Peralta, with whom Quintanilla once had a romantic relationship. Her 30-year-old brother, also from Pittsburg, is in court at the same time and charged with aiding and abetting.

He confirmed that a new shovel that his sister and Parra-Peralta purchased at a San Jose Home Depot, as well as a semi-automatic handgun purchased in early October, later ended up at Marco Quintanilla's Pittsburg 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.

Court records show that Jessica Quintanilla and Parra-Peralta, then a 21-year-old airman stationed at Travis Air Force Base at the time, transported Beauchamp's body, wrapped in a blanket and thrown up a hill on a more rural road in near Salinas dropped into Monterey County later that day, on October 30.

Under cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Ilana Shapiro, who led the prosecution during the month-long trial, expressed doubts about Marco Quintanilla's statements to Fairfield police investigators after his Nov. 1 arrest.

She pressed Marco Quintanilla about whether he put the gun in his apartment or left it in Parra-Peralta's car and whether he told investigators during a jailhouse interview that his sister was “the last person to touch the gun,” which she claimed that he changed his statement.

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.”

Shapiro showed Marco Quintanilla's cell phone records on October 30 and 31 and also showed that he had frequent contact with his sister throughout the day and into the early morning hours of the following day, Halloween.

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, 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.

Defense attorney William Alan Welch objected to Shapiro's line of questioning and the introduction of the lines, citing relevance and a Code of Evidence section that allows the court to exclude such evidence if it creates undue prejudice, confuses the facts of the case or misleads the jury. Judge William J. Pendergast granted Welch's objection.

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.

The trial continues at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Division 11 at the Justice Center in Fairfield.