For the second time in as many trial days, Marco Antonio Quintanilla, charged with being an accessory to an October 2021 killing in Fairfield involving his sister, testified Tuesday in Solano County Superior Court, with the prosecutor pressing him about conflicting statements he made to investigators.
Throughout the morning session in Department 11 and into the early afternoon, Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro continued to cross-examine Quintanilla, who, resuming his testimony, told her that when he “heard of the killing, I thought it was a joke.”
Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, allegedly shot and killed Leilani Beauchamp, 19, of Carmel, on the morning of Oct. 30 in a Cascade Lane home while she was lying in bed with Juan Parra-Peralta, with whom Quintanilla once had a romantic relationship. Her brother, 30, also of Pittsburg, is accused of the accessory allegation.
Shapiro also repeatedly showed to the jury video clips of Marco Quintanilla speaking to Fairfield police detectives Dennis Chapman and Ray Hamilton and passed out transcripts to the 12 jurors and two alternates to follow along each time.
At one point, Marco Quintanilla, in a video recording of a Nov. 2, 2021, interview, appeared to waiver on his recollection of when he spoke to Parra-Peralta on Oct. 30 while Parra-Peralta, then 21 and a former airman at Travis Air Force Base, sat in his Cadillac.
Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, is seen in Department 11 of Solano County Superior Court, Judge William J. Pendergast’s courtroom, in November 2021 to be arraigned on charges connected to the slaying of Leilani Beauchamp, 19, of Carmel, who was reported missing on Oct. 30, 2021.(Reporter file/Joel Rosenbaum)
Marco Quintanilla’s defense attorney, Laurie Savill, a San Francisco-based lawyer, frequently objected to Shapiro’s questions and statements.
“When you told officers ‘I thought they were joking,’ that was a lie,” Shapiro said.
He denied her assertion.
She noted that some evidence indicated Marco Quintanilla, previously convicted of attempted murder in August 2013 in Contra Costa County, said, “I don’t want anybody to know about it,” an apparent reference his knowledge of the crime and his alleged taking into his possession a firearm linked to the crime.
Marco Quintanilla admitted he lied to Chapman and Hamilton during the Nov. 2 interview, Shapiro said, then, magnifying a grid of cellphone calls and texts, showed to jurors the number of calls between himself and his sister on Oct. 30, the day Jessica Quintanilla and Parra-Peralta loaded Beauchamp’s body into the Cadillac and drove to a rural roadside near Salinas, where Parra-Peralta dumped her blanket-wrapped body down a hillside.
“You testified that you were arrested and had no idea why,” said Shapiro.
“Yes,” Marco Quintanilla, bearded and clad in a tan shirt and black tie over black slacks.
Out of the presence of the jury, with Shapiro showing a clip that indicated he lied during a Nov. 1 interview, and Savill objected, citing the 352 section of the Evidence Code, adding that her client had already admitted he lied during the Nov. 1 interview. The section allows a judge to exclude evidence if it is outweighed by the probability that its admission will take too much time, create undue prejudice, confuse the issues or mislead the jury.
Savill asserted that many of Marco Quintanilla’s statements “are not actual lies.”
During the afternoon session, Shapiro continued to show more video clips of the investigators’ recorded interviews, including one in which the Quintanillas were seated alone in the interview room, with her appearing to call Parra-Peralta “a f – – – ing liar.”
The first witness to testify during the trial, Parra-Peralta said Jessica Quintanilla, after the shooting, forced him to clean up the bedroom where the shooting occurred and, at gunpoint, drove the Beauchamp’s body to the rural roadside in Salinas.
On Thursday, Marco Quintanilla acknowledged a new shovel purchased by his sister and Parra-Peralta at a San Jose Home Depot, in addition to a semi-automatic handgun purchased earlier in October, ended up in at his residence later on Oct. 30.
He told Savill, responding during her direct examination, that he would not have taken the gun or shovel had he known they were involved in a crime.
Throughout her questioning Shapiro repeatedly told Marco Quintanilla that he was lying, including, based on previous testimony from Parra-Peralta, about this statement: “If something happens to her, something will happen to you.”
He denied making the statement.
Marco Quintanilla also was unsure if his sister said to him, “We shot someone,” or “He shot someone.”
But also frequently, Marco Quintanilla responded to Shapiro’s questions by saying, “I don’t remember.”
Shapiro’s cross-examination of Jessica Quintanilla on Wednesday forced the defendant to admit she was hungover from partying the previous night and upset at her former boyfriend.
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Shapiro recounted that Jessica Quintanilla on Oct. 30 entered the second-floor bedroom of a Cascade Lane home that Parra-Peralta rented. She was there to retrieve some of her personal effects, but Jessica Quintanilla testified that she did not know Beauchamp was there.
Quintanilla testified she argued with Parra-Peralta but denied she was screaming, as Shapiro said, adding that she was “loud.”
Shapiro repeatedly pressed Quintanilla about her memory of what happened just before a single bullet entered Beauchamp’s head, killing her.
Beauchamp, said Shapiro, was naked in bed, vulnerable, did not have a weapon, and was not threatening, which Jessica Quintanilla confirmed.
But boring in on Quintanilla’s possible state of mind, Shapiro asserted that Quintanilla was angry at seeing Parra-Peralta with a woman she told him “not to hang around with” and not to post anything on social media about Beauchamp. The prosecutor showed Quintanilla printed copies of text threads on social media.
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 the felony allegation, Marco Quintanilla, who after his arrest in 2021 posted bail and was released, 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 and violation of his parole.
In its fifth week, the trial resumes at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Department 11 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.