Prosecutor says L.A. firefighter beat a woman before strangling her

For police, the case of the naked woman found dead in the middle of the street didn’t stay a mystery for long.

A thick, dark tire mark containing the victim’s blood and other genetic material led up the street away from her body. Detectives followed the tire track for nearly a mile as it snaked through the Eagle Rock neighborhood until it ended in a red stain outside the Vincent Avenue home of David Del Toro, a Los Angeles Fire Department captain who had been with the department 23 years.

At Del Toro’s home, detectives found the victim’s purse, backpack and belongings as well as her blood. They also discovered a carpet saturated with blood that someone had attempted to clean up. Additionally, the victim’s blood was found inside Del Toro’s Toyota Tundra truck.

As Del Toro’s murder trial began in a downtown courtroom Wednesday, a prosecutor accused the former firefighter of savagely beating Jennifer Flores, 42, before strangling her and dumping her body in the middle of nearby Loleta Avenue.

Relatives of Flores wept as Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace showed jurors images of Flores’ bloody body and face. Her attacker had broken her nose, cut a large gash in her head and broken her jaw on both sides, much as an experienced boxer might, Grace said.

“Jennifer Flores wasn’t just murdered — she was battered and bruised and pummeled,” Grace told jurors during opening statements.

The prosecutor said Del Toro and the victim were not romantically involved and that there was no obvious motive for the Aug. 16, 2006, killing. Grace did not explain how the tire tracks were created during his opening statement, but police believe that Flores’ body could have fallen out of Del Toro’s truck while he was driving and been caught on a wheel.

Del Toro, 54, sat silently in a dark blue suit, studying the photos that the prosecutor projected on a giant courtroom screen.

But defense attorney Joseph Gutierrez questioned whether Del Toro had been involved in a fight that night.

Gutierrez showed jurors photos of Del Toro’s chest and face taken on the day that Flores’ body was found. The pictures, he noted, showed no scratch marks or any other signs of a violent struggle.

Photos of Del Toro’s living room, where a pool of blood was found, showed that the room was in order when detectives arrived. There was no blood spatter or any other evidence of a disturbance, Gutierrez told jurors.

Del Toro, he said, did not know the victim well but had helped her when he discovered she was homeless by letting her stay overnight in a spare bedroom. Gutierrez said the victim was struggling with depression and suggested that someone else could have been involved in Flores’ killing.

Hours before her death, Flores had arrived at Del Toro’s home, but she left later with a man who had knocked on Del Toro’s door, the defense attorney said. Phone records, he said, show that Del Toro and Flores traded calls during the afternoon and evening.

Gutierrez said the fire captain drank a lot of alcohol during the day and later fell asleep, exhausted from working a series of long, traumatic shifts in the previous few days.

jack.leonard@latimes.com