Police: Men planned S.J. slaying
UNSEALED DOCUMENTS SAY PAIR CONFESSED
By Sean Webby
Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/25/2007 01:34:38 AM PDT

Still covered in blood, the homeless man told police a heroic story of how he had tried to save a woman as she was being attacked. Julio Jovel had called 911 on a woman's dropped cell phone as she was being assaulted and even tried to carry her away to safety.

But Jovel was no good Samaritan. He was, according to prosecutors and police, a killer responsible for one of the city's most vicious violent crimes in years.

Soon after he was arrested, Jovel and another transient confessed in gruesome detail to San Jose detectives to raping and stabbing to death a 46-year-old woman last month, according to court documents unsealed Friday.

Jovel, 30, and Luis Alvarado, 18, - who were in the country illegally but had no serious criminal records - are facing a potential death sentence for their alleged homicidal attack on San Jose resident Sany San. No trial date has yet been set.

Their attorneys could not be reached for comment.

The details of the high-profile homicide came out Friday, weeks after prosecutors sealed a key filing in the case and defense attorneys argued all but the most basic documents in the case should be kept secret.

Acting on a suit filed by the Mercury News, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jean High Wetenkamp ruled earlier this week that the documents ought to be public, rejecting arguments that they might endanger the defendants' right to a fair trial.

"More than anything, it's a release that we know the truth,"
said San's cousin, Darrarith Kim, of San Jose. "It concludes. It gives us an answer."

However disturbing the details of his cousin's death may be, Kim said he'd prefer to know than not.

"I want to know the truth," he said.

But Darrarith Kim's view diverges from that of his sister, Ratana Kim, who objected to efforts by the Mercury News to unseal charging documents that detail the crime.

In an e-mail to the Mercury News this week, Ratana Kim said the Mercury News is "no longer alleviating the pain of this destruction in our lives, but rather contributing to this nightmare."

Inconsistent story

Police first learned of the killing from one of the suspects, according to court documents written by San Jose homicide detective Brian Ferrante.

Jovel called 911 to say that a woman was being attacked on Story Road, according to the documents.

Three men had just dragged her into the bushes, he told police.

Jovel said he tried to help her, picking her up before being chased away by "the suspect."

Jovel told police that he made his way back to her body, picked up her cell phone and called police.

Detectives suspected Jovel was lying almost right away, according to the documents.

For one thing, San seemed to have been dead for longer than the 17 minutes that elapsed between the 911 call and when police found her.

Detectives also discovered that several other calls had been made on San's cell phone. The first call was made around 5:18 a.m. - more than an hour before Jovel called police, according to the documents.

A homeowner who said she allowed Jovel to sleep in her garage later confirmed Jovel had called her around that time.

Alleged confession

When being interviewed by detective Thomas Morales, Jovel waived his Miranda rights to be silent or have a lawyer present. He told Morales that he had gone to that area to catch a No. 77 bus. Morales confronted Jovel with his inconsistencies and pointed out that the 77 bus does not run that early in the morning.

Jovel, the documents say, then confessed.

A day later, police caught Alvarado and he also confessed.

Their story is as cold-blooded as it is horrific.

The two men had planned the attack the night before as they smoked methamphetamine in a homeless encampment, according to the documents.

"He stated that Lorenzo (Alvarado) said he wanted to rape a woman, kill her and give her soul to the devil," Ferrante wrote of an interview with Jovel.

Early that morning they spotted San and began walking with her along Story Road trying to talk with her. Then they stabbed her in the stomach. She dropped her purse and cell phone and ran. The men followed, snapping up her purse and cell phone as they chased her, and stabbed her again.

They chased her into the bushes along the side of the road. And there, they raped and stabbed her over and over, according to the documents.

Jovel allegedly told police the attack lasted about 30 minutes.

He said he went back to the homeless encampment and told a man there what he had done.

That man later told police that Jovel had wakened him that morning to show him his bloody hands. He had just killed a woman, he told the man, according to the documents.

Alvarado said afterward that he dumped his bloody T-shirt in a dumpster behind a tire store, then went to a nearby home where he washed the blood off his shoes with a garden hose.

Mercury News staff writer Jessie Mangaliman contributed to this report. Contact Sean Webby at swebby@mercurynews.com

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