Defense points to other options

If Victor Manuel Garcia deliberately killed a Costa Mesa teenager in 2001, there was plenty more he could have done to try to get away with the crime, his defense attorney told a jury Thursday.

For one, Garcia’s attorney, Frank Davis, said, he could have tossed the body down the 100-foot ravine just feet away from where 16-year-old Ceceline Godsoe’s body was found.

But the fact that he didn’t, and Godsoe’s body instead was left in plain view for anyone walking west up a dirt path in Fairview Park, shows the spontaneous nature of the crime, Davis argued.

“If you are a cold-blooded, premeditated murderer and want to give yourself some time to flee to Mexico, how about not being so lazy,” Davis told the jury during his closing arguments.

Davis was responding to charges from Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy, who told the jury during his closing arguments that Garcia dragged Godsoe’s body away from help to give himself time for escape.

Garcia was interviewed by police two days after Godsoe was found in the early hours of Sept. 21, 2001. Within 48 hours of that interview, witnesses said, he was back in his native Mexico.

Attorneys got into their closing arguments in Garcia’s murder trial Thursday and are expected to conclude Monday. Garcia is accused of killing Godsoe, a girl he had met only hours earlier in the park, with a vicious barrage of kicks and punches to her head and neck while she was on the ground.

Garcia was with friends and family in the late hours of Sept. 20, 2001, celebrating the birth of his daughter earlier that day. Godsoe was at Fairview Park with another friend, and the two groups met each other for the first time and hung out. Garcia, who, at 17, was only a year older than Godsoe at the time, was seen walking off with her that night. Hours later, Godsoe’s friend found her dead body beaten and bloodied in another area of the park with Garcia and his friends nowhere in sight.

Prosecutors argue that Godsoe was beaten so severely through repeated punches and kicks to the head that it caused her airway to swell and hinder her breathing. Add a mix of blood and other bodily fluids into her throat, and she asphyxiated, a coroner testified for the prosecution. Essentially, she was beaten to death.

Davis conceded some of those points Thursday, but with one caveat: She died from complications of a broken jaw.

“I’m not saying he’s not guilty, open the door and let him out,” Davis told jurors. “I’m saying [he’s] not guilty of first-degree murder.”

He continued, “He intended to hurt her. He intended to punch her. He did not intend to kill her. Like Mr. Murphy said, no one dies from a fractured jaw.”

Murphy said the attack was so severe that it showed an understanding of the fatal consequences the kicks and punch to the head would have.

“It’s just like what you see on TV. Any animal knows that if you go for the head or the throat, you kill it,” he sternly told jurors. “Head or throat means you kill it. We all know it. Instinctually, we all know it.”

The jury will likely begin deliberations Monday. Among their choices for conviction are murder, and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Davis is aiming to have Garcia convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Garcia also has an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement hold placed on him, meaning should he ever be released from custody, federal authorities would begin processing him for potential deportation back to Mexico.