SALEM, Mass. — The fate of Christian "King Joker" Almonte is in the hands of the jury today as it enters a second day of deliberation on whether the Latin Kings gang member is guilty of murdering 41-year-old delivery man Willie Escobar, his longtime secret lover.
Jurors spent three hours in an upstairs room at Superior Court with the evidence yesterday afternoon, but failed to reach a verdict by the end of the day.
If the jury finds Almonte guilty of first-degree murder, he could face a sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Almonte, 26, of North Andover, was the subject of a six-day trial on charges of murdering the Methuen resident on the night of Feb. 24, 2008, and stealing his Toyota Camry, then giving it to a friend.
Escobar was found on the floor of his bedroom in only socks and a T-shirt, stabbed more than 20 times, a pornographic movie playing on the television and a love note on the floor.
Prosecutors said the two men had been carrying on a discreet sexual relationship before Almonte went to prison for four years for stabbing a Lawrence youth, and they rekindled the relationship when he got out in December 2007, but with a "code of silence."
While Almonte appeared calm throughout the trial, even smiling at the jurors who made eye contact with him, he sat with his face buried in his upraised hands while the judge gave the jury its instructions yesterday morning.
Every time the jury had a question for the judge, which happened several times during the afternoon, Almonte would be brought back from lock up.
At one point, as he walked down the hall, he said, "Oh boy. You got to be (expletive) me."
Yesterday morning, Prosecutor A.J. Camelio and Almonte's attorney, Edward Hayden, had one last chance to lay out their cases before a packed courtroom. Family and friends of both victim and suspect showed up to listen.
Camelio told jurors how Almonte killed Escobar out of jealousy — Escobar was seeing other men — and fear of humiliation that their "code of silence" would be broken.
He explained how Almonte was at his friend Jose DeLeon's house on the night of the killing, down the street from Escobar's Methuen apartment. He told DeLeon he would bring him a "ride," and came back with Escobar's car. DeLeon was arrested driving Escobar's car the next day, and Almonte told another friend to tell him to lie about where he got the car.
Camelio showed jurors how Escobar and Almonte had been calling each other back and forth the night of the murder, how Almonte left DeLeon's apartment at 8:30 p.m. and that Escobar's last phone call was at 8:49 p.m. — about the time it would take Almonte to walk to Escobar's apartment. Almonte showed up at DeLeon's apartment again at 9:30 p.m.
"He stabbed him through the heart, through the chest, the stomach, the back," Camelio said. "He stabbed him 20 times. He cut him seven more. He left Willie Escobar half naked, bleeding out from his chest and his arm on the bedroom floor."
Hayden, however, argued there were too many "glaring defects" in the prosecution's case, saying they had no hard evidence placing Almonte at the murder scene — no fingerprints, no semen, no witnesses.
Hayden said police should have found more blood on Almonte's clothes if he was the killer. He discounted witnesses, saying many of the men who took the stand had criminal records and lied to police. Jose DeLeon, who testified that Almonte gave him Escobar's car, had struck a "sweetheart deal" with prosecutors to serve an 8-month jail sentence for his charges, he said.
"There's a saying. If a crime is committed in hell, the witnesses won't be angels," Hayden said.
Hayden told jurors that most importantly, Almonte never confessed once to the murder during four hours of interrogations with police.
"I know you don't approve of his lifestyle," Hayden said. "You probably have negative feelings about him. That's OK. You're not here to judge his lifestyle. ... I urge you not to let your feelings affect how you judge the case."
