overwhelmed. this is harder than i thought it would be. was this klutzy moment all about winning sympathy from the jury, the time he stumbled? sorry. twisted my ankle, judge. one particularly wince-worthy moment came when civil attorney jorge baron, his nemesis from the insurance trial, took the stand. under cross-examination by escoto he explained just why it was he suspected escoto of killing his wife, wendy. you had been married to her three days before you killed her, to get the life insurance. to me, that was very clear. judge, give me a second. because i want to say something that i shouldn t. escoto lost it. if you say that again objection, judge. mr. escoto. all of those guys, i m going to take all of them and some more. had mr. nerd inadvertently shown the jury the lava boiling within? that threat won escoto a contempt of court citation from the judge. be quiet! but what
there was, he pointed out, no murder weapon, no blood, no dna linking the defendant to the crime. which is maybe why michel escoto, who had already pled not guilty to the charges, did what so many men facing a life in prison sentence would never dream of doing. he defended himself in court. i believe the evidence will show that only an imbecile and an imbecile in love with money would kill somebody four days after they were married to that person. was it lincoln s advice about a fool as a client? those who represent themselves? we ll see. wearing glasses, khakis, a sweater, and speaking in a soft voice, escoto seemed less like a killer and more like a geek, a hopeless novice getting pummeled by the execution. judge, i m telling him he was being sandbagged he. objection, judge. one time the newbie seemed near tears, another
wendy s mother got the insurance money and prosecutors got to hear firsthand about his constantly shifting stories. the state attorney sat in the courtroom and was taking notes. did you have a little chit-chat in the hallway outside? we did. what did you say? this is your case. you have all the evidence right now. of course, we gave them the deposition testimony and everything. we had everything outlined. michel escoto was arrested three days after his court no show and was charged with the murder of his bride, wendy trapaga. but police still thought they needed more, so they fixed their eyes on the girlfriend, yolanda cerrillo. i knew eventually as time goes by that that relationship would deteriorate. would deteriorate. why did you think that? if they have that secret amongst each other, that was going to be a friction point in their relationship. that s too corrosive a secret to keep? yes. how do you reel her in? time. time.
during the deposition, michel also admitted that yolanda was no longer his ex. he had moved back in with her not long after wendy s death. are you still intimate with yolanda? yes, we are. do you have any plans of marrying yolanda? plans as such, no. there had been one question about michel and yolanda that had nagged detectives since 2002. they learned through phone records that on the night of the murder, michel paged yolanda at 3:00 in the morning. but why? both michel and yolanda told police at the time he wanted to check on her sick daughter. he claims that he beeps her because he thought her daughter, yolanda s daughter, was sick. we later find out that yolanda s daughter is not sick p. so there s no reason for a middle of the night communication? no reason whatsoever. when the civil case finally went to trial, escoto got so roughed up that on the second day he was a no-show in court.
for the first time in this trial escoto s backup counsel terry lenamon, a seasoned defense attorney, would take over and urge the jurors to find reasonable doubt in the state s case. lenamon jumped in, attacking what he called the prosecutor s overselling of a mostly circumstantial case. this is a court of law. and no matter how much i scream as an advocate, no matter how much i wave my hands or say villain, villain, villain, bad, villain, it doesn t make it so. his strategy was to plant a seed of doubt in just one juror s mind. if there s a hung jury, we may have to start over again. then the case went to the jury. wendy s family, as they had done throughout the trial, gathered together once again and prayed. her mother hugged prosecutor gail levine, who pursued escoto so ferociously. she is my hero. she is without a doubt my hero. 2 1/2 hours after the jury went out cell phones started