EVERETT — Lynnwood police officer George Bucholtz was two days out of the police academy when he and his field training officer were dispatched to check on Christopher Davis.
The pastor of a Kirkland church, where Davis was the music director, had called 911, worried. The pastor had heard from a few parents who said Davis, a piano teacher, hadn’t shown up for lessons with his students. The Lynnwood man wasn’t returning calls or text messages. The pastor had last seen Davis a week earlier at a worship service.
Bucholtz and his field training officer knocked on the door of Davis’ townhouse in the 19300 block of 36th Avenue W. There was no answer and no one came to the door after the officers repeatedly rang the bell. A crack in a window hinted at what awaited officers once they were inside.
Bucholtz on Thursday testified that he found the on-site manager who provided him with a key to the townhouse. “We believed these were exigent circumstances. There was a great likelihood of a death or someone with an injury,” Bucholtz told the jury.
Davis, 32, was found lying face down on the living room floor. He’d been strangled. The medical examiner concluded that Davis likely had been dead for about a week.
Prosecutors allege that Christopher Garcia Gonzalez is behind the Sept. 14, 2015 killing. Jurors heard opening statements Thursday in his murder trial.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell told jurors that Davis had placed an ad on Craigslist seeking a “hot male housekeeper.” Garcia Gonzalez, 23, replied the same day, writing that he was a college student looking for extra income. He asked if Davis wanted a photograph.
The men started a relationship and cellphone records will show that they had a falling out sometime before Davis was killed, Cornell said.
The prosecutor told jurors that no witnesses have reported seeing the men together, but cellphone tower data indicate the defendant was near Davis’ townhouse on multiple days. His cellphone also “pinged” off a tower near a bank at the same time Davis was cashing a check there, Cornell said.
The defendant also was heard telling a friend he was the last person to see Davis alive, jurors were told.
Garcia Gonzalez was arrested a month later in northern California. He was driving the victim’s car, Cornell said. The license plates had been removed from the vehicle.
Public defender Paul Thompson told jurors that there is nothing linking Garcia Gonzalez to the killing. Detectives didn’t find his client’s DNA on the belt used to strangle Davis, Thompson said. Profiles from two other people were discovered on the ligature. Scientists didn’t recover any genetic evidence matching Garcia Gonzalez on a bottle found under Davis. They did find DNA for three other people, though, the jury was told.
“There is nothing in that apartment that can be matched to my client,” Thompson said.
Police also recovered evidence that Davis was communicating with at least one other person who responded to his Craigslist ad, he said. They never found the slain man’s phone or wallet.
Prosecutors will not “give you any evidence that (Garcia Gonzalez) acted with homicidal violence, killing the deceased,” Thompson said.
Davis attended Port Angeles and Port Townsend high schools. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music at Western Washington University and a master’s degree in piano performance from the University of Washington.
“He was a great piano player,” a friend told jurors Thursday.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.