Transient’s Murder Trial Gets Underway : Courts: Prosecutor says Jose ‘Joe’ Garcia’s history of violence against women culminated with Marsha Lane’s 1997 killing. Defense disputes charge.

The killing of Marsha Ann Lane was the conclusion of a 33-year history of violence against women by Lane’s transient boyfriend, Jose “Joe” Garcia, a prosecutor said Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh said Garcia, 53, had assaulted at least eight other women before he strangled his 41-year-old homeless girlfriend.

“It happened before--a lot--and you know it happened again to Marsha Lane,” Bamieh said in his opening statement in Superior Court. “The defendant is a murderer, and at the end of this trial you will call him one.”

Deputy Public Defender Christina Briles told the jury that prosecutors have no direct evidence that Garcia committed murder.

Lane’s death in February 1997 shows how dangerous it is for women to live on the streets, Briles said, but it doesn’t prove Garcia killed her.

Briles said she would present evidence that Garcia was having coffee with a friend at the time of the slaying.

As for Garcia’s violence against other women, Briles acknowledged that her client has battered girlfriends in the past. But she told the jury that his criminal history by itself is not enough to support a murder conviction.

“I rely on you to make a decision in this case [based] on facts, not theories,” Briles said, telling jurors that Garcia has worked hard to learn to control his temper. “You’re not going to like what my client did in the past, and he didn’t like it either.”

Garcia, a muscular man with a white mustache, sat quietly at the defense table as Briles spoke. He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

Lane, a homeless alcoholic, was killed sometime between the night of Feb. 17 and the early morning hours of Feb. 18, 1997. Her body was found in a hallway at Lincoln School by an arriving teacher, who thought Lane was asleep. An autopsy showed that she had been choked to death, and her body was spotted with bruises that might have been caused during a struggle.

Over the next 11 months, Bamieh told the jury Monday, police tracked down eight women who said they had been choked by Garcia at different times during the past three decades.

Victims included Garcia’s ex-wife, six girlfriends and his sister, Bamieh said. One girlfriend had been stabbed in the back with a steak knife, Bamieh said.

The women told investigators virtually the same story--that Garcia had choked them to the point of unconsciousness. None of the women died, and Garcia was never charged with a crime.

It was the similarity among those alleged incidents and Lane’s strangulation that eventually led law enforcement officials to arrest Garcia on suspicion of murder, Bamieh said.

Sharon Tatsch, who discovered Lane’s body, was one of the first witnesses called to testify Monday at Garcia’s trial. She told jurors that it was not unusual to find homeless people camped out on campus--but that this one didn’t move when she tried to rouse her.

“Are you awake?” she remembered asking.

The body was stiff, lying near a bedroll. There was also a scattering of cigarette butts in the bushes nearby, which were seized as evidence.

At the time of her death, Lane’s blood-alcohol level registered 0.24%--or three times the legal limit for driving a car.

During a series of police interviews, Garcia told detectives that he loved Lane. He also told police that on Feb. 17, Lane consumed most of a bottle of vodka as they drank together in Plaza Park.

Bamieh told the jury that during those interviews, Garcia denied going to Lincoln School with Lane. But in a later interview, Garcia changed his story and told police he got into an argument with Lane at the school and left her there, the prosecutor said.

Briles repeated that story in her opening remarks, telling the jury that Garcia walked away from the argument.

“She was the aggressor--not my client,” she said. “He walked away.”

During the trial, two people who lived across the street from the school are expected to testify that they either saw or heard Lane and Garcia in the neighborhood on the night of Feb. 17. Both witnesses told police the couple appeared to be arguing.

A man who sometimes let the couple sleep at his apartment on nearby Ann Street is also expected to testify that Lane and Garcia visited him that evening. He told police that the couple had left about 6 p.m., and that Garcia had returned later that night by himself.

Two of the eight women who police say Garcia choked took the witness stand late Monday. The others are expected to testify today.

Garcia’s trial is expected to last about a week.