REPORTED BY SHARON DUNN PHOTOS BY ERIC BELLAMY/ebellamy@greeleytribune.com
The first few times, it almost seemed like the public defenders were misspeaking.
But then, those watching the murder trial of Allen Andrade started muttering under their breaths. Witnesses on the stand continued to correct the attorneys questioning them.
Family members and friends echoed repeatedly, “my sister,” “Angie,” one by one on the stand Friday as public defenders Annette Kundelius and Brad Martin questioned them about “Justin.”
Jurors next week will decide the fate of Andrade, who is suspected of killing Angie Zapata — legally Justin Zapata — on July 17, 2008.
Andrade and Zapata met through an online dating networking site last summer and became fast friends. They agreed to meet, and three days after that meeting, Zapata wound up dead on her apartment floor, her face bashed in by a blunt object.
Attorneys on Thursday opened the nine-day murder trial with vastly different theories: The prosecution said Andrade knew for 36 hours that Zapata was biologically male, and he killed her because of an intense hatred for homosexuals. Public defenders have plotted the defense that Andrade was so deceived by Zapata, who was convincingly female, that he snapped and lost control when he learned she had male genitalia.
To the prosecution, she’s Angie. The defense, in every instance, refers to Justin.
On Friday, witnesses weren’t conforming to the defense.
Stephanie Villalobos, Zapata’s sister, continually corrected the defense. In one exchange while she was being cross-examined about loaning money to Zapata for gas to come back to Greeley after picking up Andrade in Thornton:
Martin: “Justin actually called and asked you for $10 in gas.”
Villalobos: “Yes, she did.”
In another exchange with Felecia Luna, Zapata’s best friend, about two of Zapata’s purses:
Kundelius: “Both belonged to Justin?”
Luna: “Yeah, Angie.”
Autumn Sandeen, a transgender woman who is a nationwide blogger in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, said the defense continually calling Angie as Justin is intentional, and disturbing, because it seemed to exploit Colorado’s hate crime law — which in this case protects transgender people — against the very person protected.
“It was kind of frustrating for me to hear the defense do that,” said Sandeen, who is blogging from the courtroom every day. “By going back from male pronouns to female pronouns, there are going to be some jury members who will see Angie as male and some who will see Angie as female, but they will all see Angie as male bodied.”
Family and friends described Zapata as a transgender woman who felt female from the time she was a toddler and played with “girl stuff” rather than cars. Zapata “came out” to friends and family about four to five years ago, they said.
“Angie believed she was female,” said her mother, Maria Zapata. “The way she dressed, the way she carried herself, the way she went in public, she dressed as a woman. She was better dressed than me, I’ll tell you that. She had better make-up than me.
“She carried herself as a woman and she was beautiful. She was beautiful.”
Zapata’s eldest sister, Monica Murguia, discovered Zapata’s body after she failed to show up to baby-sit her sister’s children. Zapata, she said, often would oversleep, but there was something different this time.
“I just had a gut feeling,” Murguia said.
She and her other sister, Ashley Zapata, drove to Angie’s Greeley apartment. Murguia went up first and saw Zapata on the floor.
“Ashley said, ‘Pick her up, Monica. She’s hurting. Pick her up ... and I was so scared,” Murguia said through tears.
At first, she thought her sister was sleeping. But Zapata’s body was stiff, and a blanket covering her stuck to her head from the dried blood, her sister said.
Murguia, who Zapata lived with three months prior to moving to her own apartment, offered a different idea when it came to the deception theory. She said Zapata told everyone she met that she was transgender.
“Angie did tell everyone who she was,” Murguia said.
Maricella Meza, Zapata’s friend of five months, agreed: “She told me right away, about a month after I knew her.”
Zapata didn’t tell anyone who Andrade was, nor did she introduce him to anyone. Prosecutors believe she took him to a municipal court appearance two days before her death.
Murguia said she assumed Zapata had been considering the man she went to pick up in Thornton as a new roommate.
WHAT'S NEXT? The murder trial of Allen Andrade will continue at 8:30 a.m. on Monday in Weld District Court. The trial is expected to last until Friday. |
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