SANTA CRUZ — During the cross-examination of convicted rapist and murderer Adrian “A.J.” Gonzalez this week, prosecutor Tara George broke down the events of the murder to a granular level and brought in demonstrative items so that Gonzalez could reenact portions of his abominable crime in the courtroom.
On July 26, 2015, then 15-year-old Gonzalez, kidnapped, raped and murdered his neighbor, 8-year-old Madyson “Maddy” Middleton, at the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz. Gonzalez has remained in the juvenile justice system since his arrest in 2015 and was slated to be released on his 25th birthday in October 2024.
In the months before his scheduled release, the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office petitioned Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Denine Guy, stating if Gonzalez was released, he could be a danger to society. A jury trial to determine whether Gonzalez should be incarcerated for another two years was then launched in November 2024 and is ongoing.
The Sentinel continued coverage of the trial Tuesday, the second day of George’s cross-examination of Gonzalez, following the initial line of questioning from attorney Charlie Stevens that concluded last week.
As George asked Gonzalez questions about his actions and mindset during the events leading up to the crime, Gonzalez said that it was challenging to recall specific details about that day because he hadn’t gone through the event with anyone “frame by frame” before the trial.
George grilled Gonzalez both about the timeline and his thought process through every step of the murder. She asked Gonzalez when he began to plan the crime and he said that he didn’t know he was going to commit the act until he noticed the 8-year-old Madyson sitting at a picnic table on the grounds of the Tannery Arts Center that day.
He said that after noticing ice cream in the groceries his mom dropped off, his plan to kidnap and rape his 8-year-old neighbor began to take shape. After putting the groceries in the apartment, he said he walked to where Madyson was sitting.
“I wanted to invite her up to have sex with her,” Gonzalez told the jury.
Gonzalez said he led the girl to his apartment via the stairs instead of the elevators. Earlier in the trial, Gonzalez voiced opposition to the use of the word “lure” in describing how he enticed the girl to come to his apartment. George highlighted this fact and read the definition of the word: “to tempt a person or animal to do something or to go somewhere, especially by offering some form of reward,” and asked him if that is what he did. He confirmed that by definition, he did lure the girl to the apartment.
George asked Gonzalez if he was excited or aroused as he and Maddy ascended the stairs, and he said he was not. George asked him what he was thinking, and Gonzalez replied that he was only thinking about what to do next. He said he offered to carry Maddy’s scooter up the stairs, and the girl refused and carried it herself.
George displayed a photo of the Tannery apartment and asked Gonzalez to point out exactly where he set out the ice cream and a bowl for Maddy. He said that while she was “serving herself,” he approached her from the side with a piece of orange duct tape, which Gonzalez put over her mouth.
“She never got a chance to eat any of the cream,” he said.
Gonzalez said he remembered ripping and not cutting the duct tape from the roll but couldn’t remember where in the house he found the tape. He said he only remembered using one piece of tape, but George pointed out that there were multiple pieces found on the girl’s body during the autopsy. She presented photos of the pieces found on the body and asked Gonzalez if they looked cut or ripped from the roll. Gonzalez agreed that a few pieces had clean edges and appeared to be cut. But he said he did not remember doing so.
George asked Gonzalez why he decided to put tape on Maddy’s mouth and he said it was to “stop her from screaming,” because he had a “general idea of how she’d react.”
George walked Gonzalez through the next steps where he picked up Maddy and carried her to his room. The 25-year-old calmly described how he carried the girl as she resisted. However, he again denied that he was excited or aroused as he “threw her on the bed.”
George asked Gonzalez if he looked Maddy in the eyes as she lay there and he said he did. She asked him how he felt and what he saw in the child’s expression.
As he did before answering most of George’s questions, Gonzalez paused. “A part of me knew what she was feeling,” he said. “I knew what she was feeling. I just remember only thinking of myself.” Gonzalez recalled choking the girl until she turned blue because then, “It would be easier to have sex with her.” George asked him if he was aroused by the act of choking her specifically and he said he was not.
George questioned what he was feeling with the then unconscious girl on his bed, and if he was attracted to her. Gonzalez responded that he wasn’t attracted to Maddy but still attempted to have sex with her. George asked if he would have tried to have sex with a man or an animal. Gonzalez said he would not because he wasn’t attracted to men or animals.
Gonzalez said that he was driven to commit the crime by a general urge to have sex and he chose Maddy specifically because, “She was a person I knew I could abuse my trust with and because it would be easy to overpower her,” he said.
The prosecutor asked the 25-year-old if he had planned to kill the girl from the onset of the events, but he said that he had not. “You were going to let her go?” George asked.
Gonzalez said it wasn’t until after he had assaulted the girl that “I decided to kill her because I didn’t want to get caught.”
Gonzalez described how he took the garbage can from the kitchen to place Maddy inside. George presented the court with a similar garbage can, bags and a doll meant to represent Maddy. Gonzalez said he decided to “fold her in half” and placed the partially clothed girl in the container, which he demonstrated with the doll. He showed the court how he held a kitchen knife with two hands to murder the girl, which he said “wasn’t easy to do.”
George asked about the music that Gonzalez decided to play to overpower the sounds of Maddy dying. He said that he played the music not to hide the sounds from others but “to drown out the sound of Madyson dying,” from himself. While questioning the murderer about the specific order of events, he was unable to remember numerous details. He had trouble talking and stuttered as George had him demonstrate to the jury how he used three bags to envelop Maddy.
“It’s difficult because I’m remembering Madyson and all she was feeling in the moment,” he explained.
George later asked the convicted killer about his decision to communicate and hang out with friends immediately after he dumped Maddy’s body into the apartment complex’s large recycling container. Gonzalez said he was trying to block what he’d done from his thoughts so that he could “blend in” and later helped in the search for Maddy to make it “seem like I cared.”
George asked Gonzalez if he saw Maddy’s mom before he was caught and if he had empathy for her. Gonzalez briefly glanced at the slain girl’s mother, sitting in the courtroom and said that he could see she was “emotional, worried and stressed,” but that he was “only thinking about myself.”
George asked Gonzalez if he lied a lot at the time of the murder, and Gonzalez said he did. He said he also lied about having depression and would lie to his mom about his poor performance in school. He said treatment since his arrest has helped him to become “more honest and open,” and that he had answered questions during the trial, “to the best of my ability.”
Before ending her line of questioning, George explicitly asked Gonzalez why he raped and murdered Madyson. Gonzalez answered that he did it because he was suicidal and wanted to have sex with someone. George asked if he tried to commit suicide after the crime. He told her he had not.
Defense attorney Stevens was then given the opportunity to ask Gonzalez additional questions in response to the cross-examination. Stevens asked Gonzalez if he could remember every detail of the crime nearly a decade later, and Gonzalez said it was difficult because the event was traumatic for him and parts are blocked from his memory.
After asking Gonzalez about his reading habits and other topics, Stevens went back to asking about the day of the murder. Like George, Stevens grilled him about his feelings and motivations while committing the crime in July 2015.
“In 2015, I knew this was a person I was doing this to, but I was just thinking about myself,” Gonzalez said.
“What do you think about it now?” Stevens asked.
Gonzalez said he thinks about the pain and fear Madyson experienced and feels “terrible” because he was a person that Madyson trusted and because “she’s no longer with us.”
“Whose fault is that?” Stevens asked.
“Mine,” Gonzalez replied.
The trial continues Monday.