San Martin
– A Superior Court judge sentenced convicted murderer Jesse Gill
to a state prison term of 26 years to life Monday morning, but the
23-year-old Gilroyan continues to insist he is innocent.
San Martin – A Superior Court judge sentenced convicted murderer Jesse Gill to a state prison term of 26 years to life Monday morning, but the 23-year-old Gilroyan continues to insist he is innocent.
Gill says he had nothing to do with the March 6, 2003 stabbing death of 26-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Wilfredo Coreas Fuentes. Police found Fuentes’ body on the kitchen floor of his second-floor apartment at 7190 Eigleberry St., where he rented a room from Gill’s mother, and concluded he had been stabbed 20 times or more. They arrested Gill less than 24 hours later.
Judge Kenneth Shapero, who presided over Gill’s trial in June, called the murder a “very, very, very horrific act.” His sentence was that required by state law: 25 years-to life for first-degree murder, plus a year for using a deadly weapon – in this case a knife.
Gill has denied killing Fuentes since the beginning, but Gill’s younger brother and the brother’s friend – then aged 14 and 13, respectively – told police detective Dan Zen the day after the murder that they saw Gill commit the act.
During Gill’s June trial, however, both boys testified that they couldn’t remember what they saw that day. Gill’s mother and several other family members also were reluctant witnesses, according to Deputy District Attorney Richard Titus.
The jury heard Gill’s brother’s statement to police on audiotape and found it credible, juror George Crowe of Morgan Hill said immediately after the trial. It took the jury about three hours to find Gill guilty on June 22.
On Monday, Shapero told Gill he suspects there is more to this case than has so far been revealed, “but the way the case presented itself, it certainly appears that you were the principal actor and not your younger brother.”
Gill has prior gang involvement, according to prosecutors, and a criminal record that includes one felony drug charge and several misdemeanors.
Titus said Gill’s gang history was a “nonissue in this case” because the murder was not gang-related.
Fuentes came to Gilroy from El Salvador six years before his death. He was enrolled in English classes and worked in construction and masonry. His goals were to save enough money to buy his mother a house in El Salvador and then move back, his sister-in-law said shortly after the murder.
He did manage to buy the house, she said, but he died before he got home.
