Live blog: Frank Garcia trial
As Monroe County Court jurors begin their anticipated deliberations today in the murder trial of Frank Garcia, his previous trial in Ontario County continues to cast a shadow.
Jurors will decide if Garcia is guilty of shooting and killing two people and wounding another in Brockport as he sought revenge over being fired from his job as a nursing supervisor.
Garcia, 35, of Hamlin was convicted in August of killing a couple in Canandaigua eight hours after the Brockport shootings.
Although nearly every prospective juror in the Monroe County case said they had heard of the Ontario County trial, the jury was chosen from those who promised to set aside what they knew.
During the Monroe County trial, Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. made several rulings to limit testimony linking the cases to avoid tainting jurors.
In one ruling, the prosecution was barred from eliciting testimony that a call made to Garcia’s cell phone by a Monroe County Sheriff’s investigator was bouncing off cell towers in Ontario County.
They were told only that the call wasn’t hitting a tower near Durand Eastman Beach, where Garcia allegedly claimed to be studying for a graduate nursing course.
Lawyers for both sides said they believe jurors can honor their pledge to disregard anything they knew of the previous trial.
“I think this group can do exactly that — to decide this case independently,” said defense lawyer Joseph S. Damelio.
Because jurors heard testimony from 39 witnesses and saw nearly 500 exhibits entered into evidence, their deliberations could be time-consuming.
“The jury is going to have a great deal of evidence to sift through,” said Assistant District Attorney Douglas A. Randall.
Garcia is charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 14 deaths of Mary Silliman, 23, and Randal Norman, 41, and attempted first-degree murder in the wounding of Audra Dillon, 42.
They were shot in the parking lot outside Lakeside Memorial Hospital.
The prosecution contends that Garcia, a registered nurse, killed Silliman while she was on a cigarette break because he was fired from his job at Lakeside Beikirch Care Center after Silliman, a certified nursing assistant, claimed he sexually harassed her.
Norman and Dillon, who were driving by the hospital, were shot when they saw a woman struggling with a man in the parking lot and stopped to help her.
Garcia was convicted of first-degree murder in Ontario County and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the slayings of Christopher Glatz, 44, and Kimberly Glatz, 38, in their home.
Prosecutors in Ontario County said Garcia was fired from Wesley Gardens care center in Rochester after Kimberly Glatz, who worked there, accused him of sexual misconduct.
MZEIGLER@DemocratandChronicle.com
What’s next
The prosecution, which called its final witness Wednesday, will rest this morning. Then the defense will announce whether it intends to call any witnesses, including Frank Garcia. After a conference with lawyers in which Judge Frank Geraci outlines the points of the law he intends to read to jurors, the lawyers will offer their summations and Geraci will explain the law. Then the jury will deliberate.
