Man Charged With Killing Wife Says Son, 3, Fired Gun

Francisco (Frank) and Vicki Gerolaga had been arguing for days when Vicki and the couple’s unborn daughter were killed by a bullet fired from Gerolaga’s handgun.

But whose finger was on the trigger is at issue in a bizarre case that is being argued in Pomona Superior Court.

Gerolaga, a 30-year-old Navy machinist from Walnut, is charged with two counts of manslaughter in the slayings of his 25-year-old wife and their unborn daughter.

The defense maintains that it was an accident, that the Gerolagas’ 3-year-old son picked up a handgun and fired the fatal shot.

The prosecutor calls that scenario impossible, saying the couple had argued for days until Frank Gerolaga shot his wife.

Many family members and friends believe the defendant and have rallied to his side, attending the trial in support of the career sailor, who has been characterized as a “model citizen.”

Authorities said the Gerolagas were quarreling in their upstairs bedroom about 1 p.m. on Oct. 1, when a 9-millimeter bullet was fired from a semiautomatic pistol and streaked upward through Vicki Gerolaga’s abdomen and chest, killing her.

“Baby Girl Gerolaga,” a 7-month-old fetus, was taken from her mother’s lifeless body by Cesarean section but died 14 hours later.

Gerolaga first told Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies that his wife shot herself.

Then he said the gun went off when he tried to grab it from her.

Finally, he said the shooting was a “miracle,” brought about when his 3-year-old son, Michael, the only other person in the bedroom, picked up the gun and pulled the trigger.

“The evidence speaks for itself,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Jakubowski said in court this week. “It’s impossible for that kid to have fired that gun.”

Defense attorney John Lueck has turned what Jakubowski predicted would be a brief trial into a complicated proceeding.

First, Lueck persuaded Superior Court Judge James H. Piatt to allow hearsay evidence that the 3-year-old confessed to the shooting.

The lawyer brought in a physician who testified that the bullet’s path through Vicki Gerolaga’s body was typical of accidental shootings, not homicides.

And the defense attorney insisted that authorities suspect murder because the Philippines-born Gerolaga spoke English awkwardly, incorrectly using the word miracle , translated from his native Tagalog, when he should have told deputies that he was surprised or startled by the shooting.

“A lot of the implications drawn by the police were directly colored by his misuse of this little word,” Lueck told jurors. “I think you will find, when all is said, that this was indeed a tragedy, an unfortunate and tragic accident.”

Vicki and Frank Gerolaga were born and raised in the Philippines.

Vicki Gerolaga was adopted at the age of 8 by Filipino-Americans, William and Connie de los Santos of Walnut, but did not arrive in the United States until she was 19 because of immigration problems.

Frank Gerolaga joined the U.S. Navy seven years ago, which allowed him to come to this country. He was stationed at Long Beach.

The couple met at an anniversary party for mutual friends in the San Gabriel Valley.

They eloped in 1988, had a son and lived with Vicki Gerolaga’s adoptive parents to save money.

They initially had a normal, loving marriage with only occasional arguments, according to friends’ testimony.

But, according to testimony by members of the De Los Santos family, the pressures of living in a crowded home that was not their own began to build and the arguments became more frequent.

Two days before the shooting, the arguments built to such a pitch that Connie de los Santos asked the couple to leave, according to testimony of family members and investigators.

On Oct. 1, the couple returned to the De Los Santos home.

Vicki Gerolaga was napping in a bedroom when her husband came home from work. The argument started anew, only this time, Vicki Gerolaga reportedly said she was tired of living, Frank Gerolaga told investigators.

Gerolaga, in what Lueck told jurors was an unfortunate attempt to confront his wife with her suicidal thoughts, took his handgun from the closet. He put five bullets in a plastic ammunition magazine, slid the magazine into the weapon and pulled back the slide to load a bullet into the chamber.

Gerolaga told sheriff’s deputies that when his wife reached for the gun, he took it away, removed the magazine, pulled the slide again to eject the bullet and put the weapon on the bed.

While Gerolaga was reaching for the ejected bullet on the bedroom floor, he heard the gun fire and turned to see his son holding the semiautomatic weapon, the lawyer said.

Lueck admitted that his client used bad judgment in pulling out the gun but said his intent was to “jog her out of that depression.”

The accident scenario was bolstered by a family friend, Dorie Mallari, who testified that during a visit to the family home three days after the shooting, Michael admitted shooting his mother.

“ ‘I shot my mom, up there,’ ” the witness quoted the boy as saying, referring to the upstairs bedroom.

Also supporting the accident theory is testimony by Alan Menkes, a retired doctor.

Menkes, who has been a consultant to the state attorney general’s office on medical malpractice and other matters, testified for the defense that intentional shooting deaths are usually characterized by bullets entering straight into the body.

In accidental shootings, the bullets usually enter the body at an angle, as did the bullet that killed Vicki Gerolaga, Menkes said.

Jakubowski said he did not think Menkes was a credible witness and called the accident scenario completely unbelievable.

First, he asked jurors, where did the extra bullet come from that killed Vicki Gerolaga? The prosecutor said sheriff’s deputies found the one expended bullet and four in the magazine, accounting for the five Gerolaga said he put into the gun.

Secondly, a county ballistics expert testified that a 3-year-old child would have had difficulty exerting five pounds of pressure on the trigger to shoot the bulky, square gun, which weighs nearly four pounds.

And finally, Jakubowski called testimony about the child’s confession “kind of convenient,” considering that Michael would never talk to sheriff’s investigators and was too frightened to even give his name when he was put on the witness stand during the trial.

“This is a kid who doesn’t talk, who hasn’t talked,” the prosecutor said. “But some relative is now trying to say this kid confessed to shooting his mother?”

Still, family and friends are standing by Frank Gerolaga and his version of the shooting.

Every day of the trial, church members, or Navy friends sit in the courtroom in a show of support.

Gerolaga’s pastor, the Rev. Edwin Ormeo, told jurors that Gerolaga is a “very gentle and caring” man who regularly attended services at Christian Fellowship Bible Church in West Covina.

Lueck said Gerolaga has a spotless Navy record and has never so much as gotten a traffic ticket in his life.

Even Connie de los Santos has not made up her mind about what happened in the upstairs bedroom of her home.

“We miss her,” De Los Santos said of the daughter she buried four months ago.

“But I don’t know (what happened). I have not decided.”