After a total of 5 hours in deliberation, a six-man, six-woman jury returned at 5:15 this evening with a verdict of guilty for Guatemalan Yanira Escobar, 20, of San Ignacio, on manslaughter charges, by a count of 11 to 1.
This followed an earlier acquittal on the original charge of murder at 4:23 p.m., following four hours and 34 minutes of deliberation beginning at 11:49 a.m. At that time, the jury foreman told Justice Herbert Lord that he and his fellow jurors were unable to agree on a verdict for manslaughter, apparently because they were confused about the circumstances under which to return a fair verdict for that charge, her attorney Linbert Willis told us while waiting for his client’s verdict.
After explaining that the jury would now have to find out whether or not Yanira used justifiable force in response to provocation, for the charge of manslaughter, Lord sent the 12 jurors back to chambers for what turned out to be forty-five minutes of further deliberations.
At the time of the jury’s first announcement, they had voted unanimously to acquit Escobar of murder, but only 9-3 were in favour of guilty of the manslaughter charge.
The young woman, who also goes by the name Dominga Hernandez, faced murder charges in July of 2005 after a bar fight that spilled out to Domingo Cruz Street in San Ignacio. In the incident, Yesenia Salguero, 23, a mother of two, was stabbed to death.
According to attendant physician Dr. Aisha Andrewin, Salguero died of a single stab wound to the base of the breastbone, near the chest, that penetrated about seven inches into the pericardial sac, puncturing the right ventricle of the heart and leading to hemorrhagic shock – that is, Yesenia, known popularly as “Jessica,” bled to death.
The circumstances under which she died, however, are somewhat complicated. The prosecution’s key witness, Sonia Coronado, is a friend of Salguero’s and was eyewitness to the entire incident at King’s Lodge on the night of July 3, 2005.
She testified that she was part of a group of five young women, including Jessica, who were socializing at the club that night, when upon returning from the bathroom, an argument began between one “Norma,” of Jessica and Sonia’s group, and the accused, who had shown up at the club later.
Insults were exchanged, and bottles thrown, but according to Coronado, Jessica was acting as peacemaker and trying to get the accused to leave her friends alone by shoving her into a waiting taxi. However, according to Coronado, Escobar had a knife in her hand during the encounter, and as Jessica was intervening to prevent a fight, she suddenly drew back toward her friends exclaiming “It hurts, it hurts,” and eventually collapsing into Coronado’s arms, blood running down her dress. She died at the local hospital.
Escobar, on the other hand, gave a statement from the dock in which she admitted that she had a knife, but that it was only to “scare” the group and particularly Jessica, whom she knew and with whom, she said, she had had previous unsavory encounters while working for her mother, Sandra, in Guatemala.
Yanira told the court that she had been looking for work and decided to relax at the club where she met a friend, named Benjamin Cano, who was called as a defense witness and corroborated her story. She contended that it was Jessica and her friends who started name-calling and annoying her, and in Norma’s case, doused her with rum as she retreated for the safety of Cano’s car.
Jessica advanced on her near the car, she said, as she was trying to get in, and pulled her hair. She denied stabbing Jessica, and said that the first she knew of her death was when she was arrested and informed of it by the police later that night.
Escobar also claimed she was coerced into giving and signing a caution statement by San Ignacio police, in which they said she confessed to the crime. Yanira, who speaks only Spanish and whose words in court were interpreted by Freddy Cantillano, is illiterate and could neither read nor write at the time.
Sergeant (then Corporal) Cesar Franco, the investigating officer, and detective constable Pedro Pech of CIB, who took the statement, both said in court that she gave it willingly and without coercion or promises of consideration.
The case has gained attention from the Guatemalan embassy, which had representatives present, and the local media, because Escobar was a juvenile at the time of the incident (she entered prison at the age of 17 and just recently turned 20) and spent just over three years awaiting trial.
Escobar’s sentencing is on August 18, the last case to be dealt with by the Central Session before it goes into hiatus, to return on October 1.