Witnesses to Offer Contrasting Views of Caro

Urging Ventura County jurors to spare Socorro Caro’s life, a defense attorney on Tuesday depicted his client as a depressed woman burdened by the stress of a tortured marriage--but also as a ceaselessly loving mother.

“She adored her children and they adored her,” said Deputy Public Defender Nicholas Beeson at the start of a hearing in which the jury will recommend either execution or life in prison without parole.

Jurors heard a harsher theme from prosecutor Cheryl Temple, who told them that Caro deserves to die after her first-degree murder conviction for shooting her three young sons as they slept.

“She committed one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, for one of the most despicable reasons--and then blamed it on someone else,” Temple said. “Don’t forget the children. Don’t forget why you’re here, and what she did.”

During a nine-week trial, prosecutors contended that Caro killed the boys to punish her husband for cutting off her funds and conferring with a divorce lawyer.

Caro’s attorneys countered that the killings were committed by her physician husband, Dr. Xavier Caro. The jurors who rejected that argument must now evaluate additional evidence that will help them decide Caro’s fate.

On Tuesday, attorneys for both sides gave the jury’s 10 women and two men a glimpse of what they’ll encounter from witnesses this week and at least part of next.

In his opening statement, Beeson said several of Caro’s relatives, an ex-boyfriend and a physician for whom she worked all will describe her as compassionate and responsible. Her children’s teachers will recount her good works as a classroom volunteer and her evident love for her boys; one of them will tell jurors how at each day’s end she and 11-year-old Joey would exchange high-fives, hug and stroll off the campus arm in arm.

Her relationship with her husband was hardly as comfortable, Beeson said. He acknowledged that the couple “did things to hurt each other,” but suggested that Socorro Caro sometimes lashed out violently for good reason.

Xavier Caro told police that he would sometimes “force himself” on his wife, Beeson claimed.

“It’s never just a one-way street,” he said.

On the night of the killings, Socorro Caro was drunk, with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.15--nearly twice the legal standard for intoxication, Beeson said. She also was taking medications for depression and anxiety, as well as diet pills.

He asked jurors to view those factors only as “mitigating” the killings of three of the Caros’ four children.

“There is no justification,” he said. “There is no excuse.”

In her opening statement, Temple said jurors would learn more about each of the slain boys--about Joey and his early reading achievements, about 8-year-old Michael and his concern for his brothers, and about 5-year-old Christopher, the family jokester.

“These children would have been our future scientists, and thinkers, and artists,” she said. “They would have been the future leaders of our community.”

But their lives were ended, Temple argued, by a “short-tempered bully.”

She outlined eight alleged violent acts committed by Caro during 11 years before the 1999 murders, contending that the killings were not an aberration in Caro’s life but “a logical extension of who she is.”

Those incidents were fleshed out in testimony Tuesday.

Assault Over a Parking Space

One witness, Jeanine Milner, said Caro slammed Milner’s head against the side window of her car during a 1992 argument over a parking space at Topanga Plaza.

Milner testified that she later sent Caro a letter demanding an apology and $4,000 for therapist’s fees and other expenses. However, on cross-examination by Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley, she acknowledged that she had never sought counseling as a result of the incident.

Incident Left Husband With Detached Retina

Xavier Caro also took the witness stand, testifying about a number of violent acts allegedly committed by his wife. While he said they fought frequently, he testified that he could not recall the subject of the arguments that led to his wife punching him in the jaw, blackening his eye, or threatening him with a butter knife. No police reports were filed in any of the incidents.

On separate occasions, he said, his wife threw a flashlight battery and a box of hair-curlers at him, but missed. He said she did strike him once in the eye with a small box that held a pearl necklace he had given her.

“She yelled something like, ‘This is yours! I won’t need it anymore!’ ” he said.

The blow caused a detached retina, requiring laser surgery, he said.