Husband Convicted in Shooting Deaths

A career Navy man was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of voluntary manslaughter in his retrial for the shooting deaths of his wife and the couple’s unborn child.

Navy machinist Francisco (Frank) Gerolaga, 30, wept when the verdict was read in Pomona Superior Court.

In January, Gerolaga’s first trial in the Oct. 1, 1991, death of his 25-year-old wife, Vickie and their unborn daughter ended in mistrial with the jury deadlocked, 11-1, for second-degree murder convictions.

His attorney argued then that Gerolaga’s wife was shot accidentally in their Walnut home by the couple’s 3-year-old son, Michael. The child picked up Gerolaga’s 9-millimeter gun that the sailor had brandished during an argument with his wife to shock her out of a suicidal mood, the defense said.

Although the jury found Gerolaga guilty Wednesday of the lesser charges in the two deaths, they found him innocent of a charge that he used a gun.

Seizing on what he called an inconsistency by the jury, defense attorney John Lueck said Wednesday that he will seek a dismissal of the case. The jurors reached a “very unusual verdict, “ he said, because they obviously did not understand the judge’s instructions.

“I don’t believe it is logically possible for the jury to have found voluntary manslaughter and not to have found he used a gun,” Lueck said. “It was the only weapon used in the case and the weapon of death.”

Lueck said he will ask for a dismissal next Wednesday, when Gerolaga could be sentenced to up to 13 years in state prison.

Gerolaga’s retrial followed essentially the same lines as the first proceeding. Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Van Sloten stressed that the defendant changed his story many times about what happened in the upstairs bedroom of the Walnut house where the couple lived with Vickie Gerolaga’s stepmother.

Gerolaga first said his wife shot herself, then said she was fatally wounded as the couple struggled over the gun and, finally, contended that his son took the gun from the bed and fired it, Van Sloten said.

“When you’re innocent, you don’t lie,” the prosecutor told jurors.

Lueck said many of the alleged statements about what happened were the result of misunderstandings because of chaos in the home after the shooting and language difficulties. The primary language of Gerolaga, a native of the Philippines, is Tagalog.

The defense lawyer also brought in a doctor who testified that the path the bullet took through Vickie Gerolaga’s body was consistent with an accidental shooting and not an intentional one. As in the first trial, Gerolaga’s son, Michael, could not be persuaded to testify.

“It is an accident, a tragic accident, but in fact, an accident,” Lueck told jurors.