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Fiancé testifies in trial
YOUNGSTOWN
David Figueroa’s fiancé, Kayla Cain, testified Figueroa was with her in their Garland Avenue residence when Emmanuel Izquierdo was shot to death in the 100 block of North Lane Avenue on April 21, 2010.
Cain, who now lives in Warren, testified Monday in Figueroa’s trial before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The jury deliberated for two hours Monday afternoon and will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. today.
Figueroa, 28, is charged with aggravated murder with a firearm specification in the fatal shooting of Izquierdo on the city’s East Side. If convicted, Figueroa faces 23 years to life in prison.
Cain, 21, testified Figueroa was with her when Izquierdo was shot at about 11:15 a.m.
She testified two other men, one of them spattered with blood on his shirt and hands, appeared at their Garland Avenue residence about 45 minutes after the shooting in a highly agitated state and conversed in Spanish, a language with which she said she had very limited familiarity.
Under questioning by Figueroa’s lawyer, Jeffrey Limbian, Cain testified that the blood-spattered man pointed a gun in her face.
Cain acknowledged she had falsely reported to Liberty police that her silver Honda was stolen while she shopped at a discount store on the morning of April 21, 2010.
“I went and made a false police report,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to say who took my car because they had threatened me,” she said, referring to the two visitors to her residence.
Cain has pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by making the false report, and Judge Durkin will sentence her at 9 a.m. Nov. 3.
In an earlier court filing, Jennifer McLaughlin, an assistant county prosecutor, said an Ohio Adult Parole Authority officer heard the gunshots and saw the silver Honda with two men inside flee the shooting scene.
Police later found the Honda abandoned on Grandview Avenue with gunshot residue on its steering wheel and an identification card belonging to Figueroa inside it, McLaughlin said.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents saw that car on North Lane Avenue before the shooting and believed it was involved in a drug transaction, McLaughlin said.
Two state-certified interpreters sat at the defense table, taking turns whispering a simultaneous interpretation of the trial proceedings from English to Spanish as Figueroa listened through headphones.
With no positive identification on him, Izquierdo was found shortly after he was shot, face down on the ground, with three bullet holes in the back of his head and bullet holes in the back of his neck, his back, forearms and buttocks.
Police found 15 spent 9mm shell casings nearby.