At least two courtrooms full of spectators—including the family of Sierra LaMar and dozens of volunteers who have been searching for her for the last five years—let out an audible gasp of relief May 9 when they heard the jury found Antolin Garcia Torres guilty of the Morgan Hill teen’s murder.
The jury in the capital murder trial that started in January unanimously found Garcia Torres, 26 of Morgan Hill, guilty of murdering Sierra, who was 15 when she disappeared in March 2012.
Garcia Torres was also found guilty of three counts of attempted kidnapping during the commission of a carjacking in relation to three incidents in the parking lots of two Safeway stores in Morgan Hill in 2009. He was tried on these counts at the same time as the murder charge.
All four counts are felonies.
The jury’s work is not over, as they will make a decision in the “penalty phase” of Garcia Torres’ fate. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty for the convicted murderer, and the jury will determine if Garcia Torres will be put to death or spend life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutor David Boyd told the media outside the courtroom at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
Sierra’s family expressed their mixed feelings of relief and lingering sadness after hearing the verdict.
“We’re grateful for the jurors—we think they made the right decision,” said Marlene LaMar, Sierra’s mother. “It gives us peace as a family, knowing it’s not going to happen to another child.”
Steve LaMar, Sierra’s father, said the verdict is “bittersweet.”
“We don’t have Sierra, that’s the bitter part,” he said. “But justice is served today, for us (and) for Sierra. That gives us some form of relief, but it will never take away our grief. That will be with us forever.”
The parents were flanked by a large group of family members, including daughter Danielle LaMar, and dedicated search volunteers.
Sierra moved to Morgan Hill from Fremont about six months before she disappeared. Her father lives in Fremont, and Sierra continued to spend time with him after she moved to Morgan Hill. Steve LaMar added that the May 9 verdict does not bring full closure to him and his family because Sierra is still missing.
Authorities think Garcia Torres kidnapped Sierra while she was walking to her school bus stop at Palm and Dougherty avenues in north Morgan Hill the morning of March 16, 2012. He killed her hours after abducting her, and disposed of her remains in a discreet location that still has not been located, Boyd said numerous times throughout the trial.
Without a body or murder weapon, the DA’s case against Garcia Torres relied heavily on trace DNA evidence found in the defendant’s Volkswagen Jetta, and on Sierra’s belongings that were found on the side of the road close to her neighborhood in the days following her disappearance.
These belongings include her cell phone, found by itself in a field less than a mile from her home; and her bag containing the clothes she was wearing when she left home that day, among other personal items, according to authorities. Garcia Torres discarded these items shortly after he kidnapped Sierra, according to Boyd.
Garcia Torres’ defense team tried to convince the jury that Sierra ran away from home during the trial. They also attempted to sow doubt on the DA’s case by arguing the DNA evidence was not conclusive and was mishandled by detectives and county crime lab experts who processed it.
Hundreds of volunteers over the last five years have scoured South County looking for a sign of Sierra’s whereabouts. Steve LaMar said these volunteers, who come from throughout the Bay Area, are a “special group of people” who have become “lifelong friends.”
A core group of searchers are not planning to stop. Roger Nelson, a volunteer search coordinator, said they have received “scouting assignments” identifying possible search locations as recently as this weekend. They also plan to compare information from testimony during the trial with their previous search locations to identify possible search sites in the near future.
They want to continue searching “to bring Sierra home to her family,” Nelson said in response to a question from the media. “The LaMars deserve justice.”
“We will not give up,” Nelson added.
More than 100 family members, volunteers, searchers, media people and spectators attended the reading of the verdict May 9. The court had to open an additional courtroom with a closed circuit television broadcast of the verdict to accommodate the crowd.
