Trial starts for man charged with murdering 4-year-old son


Defendant Javier Terrones listens to a Spanish Language interpreter during his preliminary hearing Friday. Terrones was bound over for trial on a variety of charges including a murder charge in the death of his son.


By: JOHN HALL - Staff Writer
NORTH COUNTY TIMES, CALIFORNIA

FRENCH VALLEY ---- Tears flowed in both the jury box and on the witness stand as a trial began Thursday for a Lake Elsinore man charged with murdering his 4-year-old son and the attempted murder of his daughter.

Little 11-year-old Bianca Terrones walked into the Southwest Justice Center courtroom clutching a stuffed bear to her chest. Reaching the witness stand, she started to cry as she looked out and saw her father.

Javier Terrones is accused of intentionally driving his Cadillac Escalade ---- with Bianca and her brother inside ---- across the southbound lanes of Interstate 15 so fast that the huge vehicle went airborne up an embankment and landed on top of a Ford Explorer on the Clinton Keith Road bridge in Murrieta.

The woman inside the Ford was pinned inside, but survived the impact of the sport utility vehicle suddenly crashing down on top of her own vehicle.

In his opening statement Thursday to jurors, Terrones' attorney, Dario Bejarano, admitted his client's actions the morning of Nov. 2, 2006, were wrong.

"Yes, when he hit the embankment, Mr. Terrones was going too fast," the defense attorney said.

He also told jurors the boy should have been in a child's car seat but was not. But Bejarano said this was nothing more than a horrible accident.

"Don't be misled by the rhetoric that this is a murder case until you hear all the evidence," Bejarano advised the jurors. "Don't get lost in the tragedy of the death of that child."

Deputy District Attorney John Henry told jurors in his opening statement that what happened was "tragic for sure, but not an accident" and the result of Terrones' attempt to kill himself and his two children.

Terrones decided to do that, Henry said, "because he was angry with his wife."

The prosecutor gave jurors several examples of times the couple argued, including the night before the crash when the family went to church.

Henry said that during the crash, Javier Jr. was ejected from the Escalade as it spun through the air and flew off the freeway.

As the prosecutor detailed what Bianca would tell them when she testified, including how she desperately tried to help her brother as her father sped down the freeway, one woman on the jury broke down in tears.

A little more than an hour later, Bianca was on the witness stand. With her stuffed bear settled on her lap, she spent about an hour answering questions from both attorneys, telling jurors what she remembers about the fateful drive as well as what happened just before the crash that killed her little brother.

She doesn't remember the crash itself, only waking up in the hospital afterward, she told the jury.

Some jurors craned their necks to try and get a look at Terrones' reaction as his daughter testified. Periodically, he used a tissue to dab his face, but otherwise showed little reaction.

Bianca's quiet voice cracked at times as she fought her own emotions and gasped for air as she tried not to cry.

As her father sped down the freeway, faster than she had ever seen him drive, Bianca said, her little brother started to cry "because he got scared."

She was in the front passenger seat, seat-belted in, while her brother was in the back seat, but not in his car seat, which her father didn't take that morning, Bianca said.

Her father told her to call her mother on his cell phone, so she did, Bianca said.

"I was looking back at my little brother," she said, describing how Javier Jr. was sliding back and forth across the seat because of the speed they were going.

Then, Bianca told jurors what she heard her father tell her mother on the phone.

"He said she was going to regret what was going to happen," Bianca said.

The little girl testified that her brother said, "Help me," to her in Spanish. She tried, she said, but couldn't reach far enough back to get his seat belt on him.

Zorayta Terrones, the mother of both children, testified Thursday afternoon. She told jurors she and Javier have been married about 11 years and that she is in the process of divorcing him.

She recalled the phone call she received from Terrones just before the crash. In the background, she said, "My kids were crying."

"Bianca was saying, 'Mommy,' and Little Javier was crying," she said.

On the phone, her husband repeated three or four times, "You're going to regret it for the rest of your life," she testified.

She was at her mother's house and became so scared for her children's safety that she called 911. A Riverside County sheriff's deputy showed up, wanting pictures of the children so they could try to find them. The next call she got, she said, was from a woman saying Bianca had been in an accident.

Zorayta Terrones starting crying on the witness stand as she remembered how the woman said Bianca was going to be all right.

"I asked about my son and she said she wasn't so sure," she said.

The prosecutor asked her about previous problems between herself and her husband.

In March 2005, Javier started to believe she was having an affair with his younger brother, she testified.

"Were you?" Henry asked.

"No," she replied without hesitation.

There was a time a few months before the fatal crash that the family went to a swap meet in Los Angeles County and her husband thought she had told people there to play a song with lyrics relating a Mexican story about a guy being cheated on, she told jurors.

"I told him he was crazy," she said.

On the way back to Lake Elsinore, he threatened to drive off Ortega Highway saying "all of us would die," she said.

Then, there was the night before the deadly crash when they were at church.

Zorayta Terrones said her husband "didn't like what the pastor was preaching about."

During the sermon, she said, the pastor told the couples to say something nice to one another so she turned to Javier, "and I told him I loved him."

But he responded in anger, saying the pastor "was full of bull----," she said.

She and the children went home alone and her husband came home a couple of hours later, after midnight, wanting to talk about what happened. But she told him she was tired and didn't want the children to hear them.

The next morning, he again wanted to talk, but she had to go to work and she told him they would talk later, she said.

She told jurors she had no reason to believe her husband was going to harm the children when she left that day. Then, she started receiving the phone calls just before the crash.

During cross-examination, Bejarano asked her if there was something that happened in the past, before all the arguments, that changed the way her husband acted.

After a long pause, she answered softly, "He started taking drugs."

The trial is expected to continue Monday morning before Judge Rodney Walker.

Terrones, who remains in custody, faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Contact staff writer John Hall at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2628, or jhall@californian.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09 ... _21_07.txt

Comments On This Story

Note: Comments reflect the views of readers and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff.

Four-year-old boy succumbs to injuries wrote on Sep 21, 2007 6:10 PM:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11 ... 1_3_06.txt "

Jorge Bush wrote on Sep 21, 2007 6:35 PM:
" Family values do not stop north of the Rio Grande. "

Father, who authorities said crashed SUV in Suicide Attempt, held on Murder Charge wrote on Sep 21, 2007 8:46 PM:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11 ... 643210.txt "

Add Your Comments or Letter to the Editor

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09 ... _21_07.txt