A 23-year-old man who was lying in bed next to the 19-year-old Carmel woman who was fatally shot in late October 2021 in Fairfield testified on Wednesday that he did not see Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla “pull out the firearm,” adding, “I just saw it in her hand.”
Responding to questions from Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro, Juan Parra-Peralta, seated on the witness stand in in Solano County Superior Court in Fairfield, then said that he “heard a loud noise,” suggesting Quintanilla shot and killed Leilani Beauchamp, 19.
Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, is charged with killing Beauchamp on Oct. 30 and using a gun to do it, and her brother, Marco Antonio Quintanilla, 30, also of Pittsburg, is charged with being an accessory.
As Parra-Peralta spoke, Jessica Quintanilla showed no outward emotion as she looked alternatingly at him and Shapiro. Marco Quintanilla appeared to be taking notes as he sat next to his lawyer, San Francisco-based attorney Laurie D. Savill.
Testifying during the afternoon session of the trial’s second day, Parra-Peralta, 23, recounted when Jessica Quintanilla, with whom Parra-Peralta had a previous relationship, walked into the bedroom at about 8:30 a.m.
He told Shapiro that Quintanilla did not tell him she was coming to the home, that she was argumentative and “came to get her stuff.”
When Quintanilla started going through his belongings while searching for her, Parra-Peralta said he told her “to get out of my house,” with her responding, he added, “I’m going to get my things and leave.”
He said they continued arguing and then Quintanilla pulled off some of the bed covers and, seeing Beauchamp lying in bed, uttered the word “bitch.” Awakened, Beauchamp asked “What’s up?” Parra-Peralta recalled.
He told Shapiro that Quintanilla then “grabbed her bracelet and walked out” of the bedroom for “about 30 seconds,” then returned with a semi-automatic handgun in her hand.
Shapiro asked Parra-Peralta how far Quintanilla was from the bed at the time of the alleged shooting and he said, “A few feet.”
After the alleged gunfire, Quintanilla walked out of the bedroom and later told Parra-Peralta that she would shoot him “if I didn’t help her.” He also testified that Quintanilla blamed him for the shooting.
“She said she’d shoot me if I walked out of the room,” he said, adding that, later in the morning, she got in her car and drove with him to a Home Depot store to buy a tarp, suggesting it would be used to wrap up Beauchamp’s body.
Parra-Peralta again said Quintanilla told him that “She was going to pin everything on me,” and also testified that she “was saying, ‘Do what I say, basically.’ “
He also told Shapiro that Quintanilla told him she also would kill some of his relatives if he did not cooperate.
Earlier in the morning, Parra-Peralta told Shapiro that he met Beauchamp online via the social media site Instagram but later met her in person at a party. Later, however, they drifted apart for a time and he began dating Quintanilla. He then identified her sitting at the defense table next to her lawyer, San Francisco-based attorney William Alan Welch.
However, Parra-Peralta resumed his relationship with Beauchamp in September 2021 via social media and they attended a sideshow, an informal demonstration of auto stunts, often held in Bay Area street intersections.
He also testified that he and Quintanilla had, at one point earlier in their relationship, purchased Glock handguns.
Parra-Peralta told Shapiro that he never referred to Quintanilla as his girlfriend and he did not recall if she ever referred to him as her boyfriend.
The trial began Tuesday with Shapiro outlining in her opening statement what the evidence will show and her telling the jury that, at trial’s end, “It will all come together to corroborate the charges.”
Shapiro alluded to court records showing that, on Oct. 30, the Fairfield Police Department received a missing person report for Beauchamp, last seen leaving a Halloween party in Sacramento earlier that morning with two active-duty airmen from Travis Air Force Base, one of them Parra-Peralta, who were living off-base in the 2900 block of Cascade Lane in Fairfield.
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Court records show Jessica Quintanilla was arrested on Oct. 31 near the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Linscheid Drive in Fairfield. It is unclear when and where Marco Quintanilla, a previously convicted felon, was taken into custody.
Also, court records show that Parra-Peralta was not charged in the case, but, Shapiro told jurors, he was discharged from the Air Force under “less-than-honorable” conditions.
Fairfield officers worked with Travis AFB’s Office of Special Investigations and the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, as Beauchamp’s remains were later discovered in Salinas.
Shapiro said jurors will hear testimony that “Jessica did not like Leilani,” and hear Dr. Arnold Josselson, a Fairfield pathologist who performed the autopsy, testify that the bullet entered Beauchamp’s head and “exited on the right side of her head.”
DNA, fingerprints, firearms, cellphone communications between the siblings, and Marco Quintanilla’s ankle monitor data also will be entered into evidence, Shapiro noted.
Jessica Quintanilla is being held without bail on first-degree murder charges in the Claybank Detention Facility in Fairfield. Marco Quintanilla is out of custody, having made bail, but is charged with violating his parole associated with a felony conviction for attempted murder.
If convicted, Jessica Quintanilla faces 25 years to life in prison and perhaps more time for the use of a firearm. And, if convicted of a felony, Marco Quintanilla could face up to three years in prison, depending on the circumstances of the case, and perhaps more time for being a previously convicted felon.
The trial resumes at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Department 11 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.