‘False Facts’ Used to Pin Death on Rapist, Jury Is Told

Orange County prosecutors are “testing a neat new murder theory” with “false facts” in the case of an admitted rapist charged with killing a 79-year-old woman who died a month after the attack, a defense attorney told a jury Thursday.

Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia said the prosecution failed to prove any connection between the rape of 79-year-old Mary Ward and her death a month later from heart and kidney failure.

Instead, Gumlia said, the district attorney overwhelmed jurors with the horror of the rape by repeatedly playing Ward’s frantic 911 call, relied on testimony of doctors who had no knowledge of Ward’s medical history, and then “glossed over” the specifics of her death.

“There is a big gap in their case,” Gumlia told a Superior Court jury during closing arguments Thursday. “Though it’s very seductive to say the attack set certain forces in motion, it’s too much of a leap of faith.”

Gumlia represents Jose Alonso Garcia, 20, a dishwasher from Stanton, who is charged with murder, rape and four other sexual assault charges. Jurors in the case began deliberating Thursday.

Gumlia has maintained that the assault did not cause Ward’s death and that she was ill with lung cancer and other medical problems.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. LaBahn, has argued that the attack killed Ward’s spirit and hastened her death. LaBahn said that before the attack in May, 1992, Ward was a “feisty and energetic” woman who loved her friends and her church, but became despondent and lost her will to live after the assault.

LaBahn said that Ward’s health was improving, and she would have lived longer had she not been traumatized by the attack.

LaBahn called on testimony from six physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists who said there is a connection between the mind and the body, and that a person who loses interest in living often dies sooner than someone with a positive outlook on life.

On Thursday, Gumlia dismissed such evidence as unproven and still not accepted by the mainstream medical community. Gumlia also blasted several of LaBahn’s medical experts who he said had never examined Ward, nor had a thorough understanding of her ailments.