Attorneys prepare for second trial in Sierra LaMar disappearance after overturned murder conviction

Trial preparations are underway for a second prosecution of Antolin Garcia Torres, who was convicted nearly a decade ago in the kidnapping and presumed killing of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar before seeing his murder and kidnapping convictions overturned earlier this year by an appellate court that found his original trial was mishandled.

The Feb. 27 reversal ordered by the 6th District Court of Appeal was upheld last month by the California Supreme Court when it declined to review the appellate ruling, and attorneys convened in Santa Clara County Superior Court last week to start proceedings toward a prospective retrial. Additional court hearings, including a readiness conference set for Friday, are scheduled in June.

Garcia Torres, 35, is listed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as being incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison, but he is expected to be transported to county jail custody by next week. Prior to his conviction reversal, he had been serving a prison term of life without parole, after the jury that convicted him in 2017 decided against condemning him to death.

The initial conviction of Garcia Torres was considered noteworthy given that Sierra’s body was never found after her March 16, 2012 disappearance — while she walking to a bus stop in unincorporated Morgan Hill — despite more than 750 volunteers organizing yearslong searches for her remains.

Prosecutors can still draw on physical evidence, including what crime lab analysts testified were traces of Sierra’s DNA found on a strand of her hair on a rope in the defendant’s car trunk, and his DNA found on her recovered clothing, which they say clash with his assertion that the two never met.

“We are trying this case,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement to this news organization. “We are undeterred in our mission to get justice for Sierra and her family.”

Deputy Alternate Defender Al Lopez, one of the attorneys who represented Garcia Torres in the first trial, will again defend him in the retrial.

“Mr. Garcia Torres and his defense team have always maintained his absolute innocence to the allegations,” Lopez said in a statement. “Now, after 14 years in prison, we will continue to vigorously assert his right to a fair trial after which we believe that he will be exonerated and be able to make up for the lost time away from his family.”

A day after the conviction reversal, Sierra’s mother, Marlene LaMar, told this news organization in a text message: “Just when we thought we had peace and were able to move forward with our lives, we now have to relive this horrific nightmare.” When reached by text message Wednesday, she said she still feels the same way.

Under the appellate court’s order, prosecutors in the new trial will be prohibited from arguing that Garcia Torres acted with premeditation or planned to kill Sierra, or cite three prior kidnapping allegations against him from three years before her disappearance.

The court’s ruling found that jurors were prejudiced by the trial court and prosecutors errantly grouping Sierra’s case with the earlier kidnapping claims, borne from allegations that he forced his way into women’s cars in three separate attacks, and used a stun gun in one.

Presiding Justice Adrienne Grover, who authored the ruling that overturned Garcia Torres’ convictions, took issue with the prosecution’s arguments that the earlier alleged kidnapping attempts were a “training ground” for abducting and killing Sierra. The prior crimes, Grover wrote, “bore less resemblance” to authorities’ characterizations of Sierra’s presumed death. She added that without a body, “no evidence clearly established how she died or how defendant had caused her death.”

Sheriff’s office investigators concluded that Sierra was dead in a May 2012 affidavit in which they cited how she “has no independent means of support,” and that “all of her known personal belongings, including her asthma inhaler, her money, her house keys, and the clothing she was wearing the morning of her disappearance, have been located.”

At the original trial, Garcia Torres’ defense argued Sierra was not dead, and suggested she may have run away without a trace because she was unhappy about her recent move from Fremont with her mother and mother’s boyfriend. He told investigators that he had been on a short fishing trip the morning she disappeared; after being presented with incriminating DNA evidence by detectives, he claimed that he periodically masturbated in his car and discarded tissues and napkins out the window.

In addition to Friday’s court hearing, a hearing related to trial scheduling is set for June 29.