EVERETT — Investigators didn’t find the suspect’s DNA or fingerprints at the crime scene. There were no eyewitnesses who saw Christopher Garcia Gonzalez with the victim.
Detectives didn’t uncover any concrete motive for why Garcia Gonzalez wanted Christopher Davis dead.
“It doesn’t matter,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell told jurors Thursday in closing arguments.
The evidence leads down one trail and that trail ends at the defendant, he said. He was found in the slain man’s car in California and he admitted to being the last person to see Davis alive.
The defendant “literally squeezed the life out of” Davis, Cornell said. Garcia Gonzalez fled to California in the victim’s car and attempted to cover his tracks “because that’s what you do when you know you’ve done something wrong.”
Snohomish County public defender Paul Thompson called the case against Garcia Gonzalez a “pyramid of inferences” that don’t add up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. His client isn’t tied to the crime scene. His DNA wasn’t found on the belt used to strangle the victim. Forensic scientists did find an unidentified person’s genetic evidence at the crime scene.
Lynnwood detectives failed to pursue that lead and others, including tracking down the other men Davis met online, Thompson said.
“They’ve given you a partial investigation,” he said.
Jurors began deliberations late Thursday morning. They had not reached a verdict by the late afternoon and are expected to return Friday morning.
Garcia Gonzalez, 23, is charged with second-degree murder. He also is accused of stealing Davis’ car. Garcia Gonzalez was arrested in San Jose, California, on Oct. 15, 2015, nearly a month after Davis was found dead in his townhouse.
Davis’ friends called police Sept. 20, concerned that the Lynnwood man hadn’t been heard from in at least a week. Davis, a piano teacher, had failed to show up for lessons with his students. He also didn’t show up for a worship service at a Kirkland church, where he was the music director.
Investigators suspect that Davis was killed around Sept. 14, 2015. He was identified through dental records.
Jurors were told that the defendant and Davis, 32, met earlier that month on Craigslist. Davis posted an advertisement for a “hot male housekeeper.” Garcia Gonzalez answered the ad and sent a photograph. The men engaged in some type of relationship.
“Chris Davis took a risk, but Chris Davis did not deserve to die for the risk he took,” Cornell said.
Records show that Davis and the defendant exchanged more than 1,000 text messages. There appeared to be some sort of falling out, and Davis accused Garcia Gonzalez of using him for money and marijuana.
The day Davis was killed there’s a three-hour window in which the defendant didn’t send a text or make a call, Cornell said. It was during that time that he strangled the victim, the deputy prosecutor said.
The prosecution’s timeline isn’t consistent, Thompson said. At the time they say his client was killing Davis, records show he was surfing a pornography site, Thompson said.
Why didn’t police seize the phone records of the other man who responded to Davis’ online ad? Why didn’t they take a sample of his DNA and test it against evidence collected from the crime scene? Why was it a cleaning man, not a detective, who found a handwritten threat in Davis’ apartment?
“They made a decision my client did this and they dropped any other suspects,” Thompson said.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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