Conviction overturned in 2012 killing of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar

When Antolin Garcia-Torres was convicted of the kidnapping and alleged murder of Sierra LaMar in 2017, the Morgan Hill teen’s mother said she “prayed for the chapter to have this type of ending.”

But an appeals court threw that ending into limbo this week, overturning Garcia-Torres’ conviction and reopening the case after nearly a decade. A three-judge panel of the 6th District Court of Appeal ruled that jurors were prejudiced by grouping Sierra’s kidnapping with three other attempted kidnappings with which Garcia-Torres was charged.

“None of the four charges was particularly strong,” Acting President of the Court of Appeal Adrienne Grover wrote in the ruling. “Given that the consolidation of four weak cases was likely to change the outcome of some or all of the counts, we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion for severance.”

Sierra was 15 when she disappeared on her way to high school in March 2012. The search for her began as a missing person’s case, but quickly turned darker when her cellphone was found in a muddy field near her home the next day. Shortly afterward, searchers found her schoolbooks and the clothes she wore on the day she disappeared in a nearby shed.

Despite years of searching with the help of hundreds of volunteers, Sierra’s body was never found and authorities never definitively established the murder weapon or the crime scene. These factors hampered the prosecution of Garcia-Torres, who was arrested five days after Sierra’s disappearance.

Garcia-Torres, now 34, was a Safeway employee at the time and lived in a nearby trailer park with his wife and daughter. His conviction ultimately rested on traces of his DNA on Sierra’s clothing, as well as traces of his DNA inside her car and strands of her hair on a rope in her trunk. Garcia-Torres said he had never met Sierra and that the DNA could be the result of his habit of masturbating in his car and then throwing the tissues he used on the ground.

Prosecutors also identified Garcia-Torres as their suspect in three incidents in 2009 in which women said a man entered or attempted to enter their cars while they were in parking lots at different Safeway locations and then got out shortly after. One woman said he shocked her with a stun gun; another said he put a knife to her neck. Prosecutors said those meetings served as “training” for Sierra’s murder three years later.

Garcia-Torres was ultimately convicted of attempted kidnapping in all three incidents, as well as the kidnapping and first-degree murder of Sierra, and was sentenced to life in prison. In this week’s ruling, Grover suggested the four cases might not have been compelling to a jury without the addition of the others.

“Sierra’s body has not been found, raising a question as to the fact of her death, and no evidence clearly establishes how she died or how the defendant caused her death,” Grover wrote. “None of the three Safeway victims positively identified the defendant, and the three Safeway incidents were likely to give rise to multiple interpretations of the perpetrator’s intent.”

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, which led the investigation into Sierra’s disappearance, said Friday it was “disappointed” by the court’s decision but respected “the role the appellate courts play in ensuring fairness and due process.”

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office could appeal Friday’s ruling, taking it to the California Supreme Court, or send the case back to Santa Clara County Superior Court for a new trial. Garcia-Torres remains incarcerated, but he could “ask the new trial judge to address the issue of bail as any defendant can,” prosecutor spokesman Sean Webby said.

“We have just received the notice and are digesting it,” the office said in a statement Friday. “However, we will never stop demanding justice for Sierra.”

This article originally published on Conviction overturned in 2012 murder of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar .