About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Military Marriage Murder Trial — AK v. Zarrius Hildabrand — Full Closing Arguments from Law&Crime Trials, published July 1, 2026. The transcript contains 15,400 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Where is she? What happened to her? And when will we find her? At the beginning of this trial, Ms. Hurley told you that those were the questions that everybody except for the defendant was asking. And now you know exactly why he wasn't asking those questions. Because he murdered Soraya Hildebrand..."
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Where is she? What happened to her? And when will we find her? At the beginning of this trial, Ms. Hurley told you that those were the questions that everybody except for the defendant was asking. And now you know exactly why he wasn't asking those questions. Because he murdered Soraya Hildebrand with a single gunshot to the head at an intermediate range, likely 6 to 12 inches away after a night of drinking, and she had caught him cheating on her. He shot her in the head and then callously disposed of her body down a storm drain. He perpetuated a lie about her being missing, and he has lied to every single person that he talked to about Soraya's death. And he lied to you yesterday. But the defendant could not work his magic on the police. And he will not work his magic on you either. Because he knew what he was doing that night, and he remembers what happened. Selective amnesia is a coward's way out of a hard truth. He acted impulsively and drunkenly, no doubt. But he did act intentionally. For that, he was guilty of murder in the first degree. I'm going to begin by discussing the law. Then we'll talk about the evidence that supports the elements of every crime charge. And finally, we'll conclude by discussing some of the defenses and why the defendant's story is absolutely unreasonable in light of what you know about the way the world works. And in light of the evidence presented. So let's start with count one. And you can refer back to your jury instructions as we're doing this. But the state has charged murder in the first degree. And this is intentional murder. That's defined in instruction 20. The defendant intended to cause the death of another person. And he caused the death of another person. Those are the elements that the state has to prove. Murder in the first degree requires intentional conduct. And that's what separates murder in the first degree from the less or included murder in the second degree. And the second degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Instruction 29 defines intentionally. A person acts intentionally with respect to a result described by a provision of law defining an offense when the person's conscious objective is to cause that result. When intentionally causing a particular result is an element of an offense, that intent need not be the person's only objective. So he can mean to do other things as well as long as he means the act that killed her. causing a particular result is an element of an offense, that intent need not be the person's only objective. So he can mean to do other things as well as long as he means the act that killed her. An important thing about this definition, as you notice, is there is no premeditation requirement. An intent can be impulsive. Just like we talked about in jury selection, you can decide to do something in an instant as long as it is your conscious objective when you're doing it. We're also going to talk a little bit about voluntary intoxication. If you look at that Instruction 29, you'll see that voluntary intoxication can be a defense, or is not a defense to a knowing, a reckless, or a criminally negligent crime. It's specifically listed in the definitions of knowingly, recklessly, and criminal negligence, that it's absolutely just not a defense to those crimes. And so it's going to be a factual determination for the jury as far as murder in the first degree and intentional conduct. Like, was he so drunk that he could not form the intent to kill? And that's where you're going to look at all the surrounding evidence and decide that you don't cover up an accident. You cover up a crime. He knew what he was doing and he meant to do what he was doing. So that's the definition of murdering, first degree, and intentional conduct. I want to talk to you a little bit about the lesser included. Instruction number 25 tells you how to work through those. You can deliberate on them in any order that you wish. The lesser included offenses of murder in the second degree, manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide. They go in that order, but you never vote on the lesser ones unless you've unanimously decided he's not guilty on the higher. So you all have to agree he's not guilty of murder in the first degree before you go to the lesser included of murder in the second degree. Deliberate on them however you want, but don't fill out that verdict form and vote until you've decided that he's not guilty of murder in the first degree. The evidence shows that he's guilty of murder in the first degree, but just as you're thinking about it procedurally, that's how you do it. So let's talk about those lesser included for just a minute. Murder in the second degree, there's two theories. One, the defendant intended to cause serious physical injury and cause death. That's another intentional crime. Or the defendant knew that the conduct was substantially certain to cause death or serious physical injury and cause death. That's a knowing crime. You all don't have to agree to decide he's guilty of murder in the second degree, which of those theories he committed. Half of you can think he intended to cause serious physical injury and killed her, and half of you can think he knew his conduct was substantially certain to cause death or serious physical injury and he killed her, as long as you all agree that he committed murder in the second degree. But you don't get here unless you're unanimous, not guilty on murder in the first degree. Then there's two other lessors below that. So if you all decide he's not guilty of murder in the first degree, not guilty of murder in the second degree, then you go to manslaughter, which is recklessly causing the death of another person, and then you go to criminally negligent homicide, which is causing the death of another person with criminal negligence. Again, the state submits that this is murder in the first degree. That's just how you work through those lesser included. So I want to talk about murder in the second degree. This is a charged offense for count two. So all those first instructions go to count one, murder in the first degree. The next charged offense is what we call an extreme indifference murder, or murder in the second degree. It's yet again a different theory of murder in the second degree. And that satisfied if the defendant's conduct caused the death of another person, the defendant knowingly engaged in this conduct, and the conduct was performed under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life. Again, instruction 29 defines knowingly and recklessly for you, and voluntary intoxication is not a defense to either of those mental states. So you have to ask yourself, well, what does extreme indifference mean? And the law gives you some instruction on this. It's in instruction 27. You should consider the social utility of the defendant's conduct. Getting trashed, getting a gun out, cheating on his wife, and getting into a confrontation about that. There's no social utility to any of the conduct that occurred that night. The magnitude of the risk the defendant's conduct created, including both the nature of the harm that was foreseeable, would people think that this is a result that could occur from this, and by the defendant, and the likelihood that the defendant's conduct would cause that harm. If you point a loaded gun at somebody and pull the trigger, what's going to happen? And then the defendant's knowledge of that risk and any precautions he took to minimize the risk. Those are some of the factors when you decide extreme indifference. And then you have counts three and four, which are the tampering with evidence counts. Count three is for the tampering with the evidence of the apartment, essentially the cleanup at the house that he did. And count four is for dumping her body into that storm drain. So we have to prove that the defendant knowingly destroyed, mutilated, altered, suppressed, concealed, or removed evidence, and that he did so with the intent to impair the physical evidence, verity, or availability in an official proceeding, this proceeding right here. So that's the law. I want to talk about the evidence. And going through the timeline is probably the best way to do that, because you have to decide, was he acting intentionally? Did he know what he was doing? And the acts leading up to what he did and the acts after are really, really critical to that. So let's start with Saturday, August 5th. And they're also critical to understanding the defenses. So what we know on August 5th is Soraya and Zarius went out to celebrate his 21st birthday. She was excited to go out. She picked out a new outfit. She decorated for him. She was going to have a good night for him. She was also the most sober in the group. If you recall the medical examiner's testimony, she's not even right around like half the legal limit at the time of her death, .046. And they start out at Dave & Buster's. They win this Pickle Rick that she was excited about. And then they move to Willowa, where they are drinking and dancing and having fun. Soraya is doing the most of the dancing and having fun. But everybody is getting along. And at some point in the night, no doubt the defendant becomes intoxicated. It is his 21st birthday. The state is not saying that he's not drunk. He's just not drunk enough to not know what he's doing. And so they walk from Willowa to the gaslight. He gets turned away at the gaslight. And four of them, Marie, Isaac, Soraya, and the defendant, take an Uber or a Lyft back to the house. The defendant is falling asleep, but also waking up in the Uber and telling people thanks for the good night. If you recall Marie's testimony, he was kind of in and out, but aware of who was with him and where they were going. And if he listened to his testimony, he was the one that wanted to go home. Like, he knows that he's hit a limit and needs to go home. And Soraya helps him into the house, but he's able to walk on his own accord. Despite getting sick, he's up and he's moving. And then we move into the early morning hours of August 6th. We know that this is the last picture of the two taken together, and the time on the phone is just after midnight, seven minutes after midnight. And then we know that this is what he looked like in the bar. He's intoxicated. He throws up in the Uber and outside the apartment, but he gets into the apartment. We know that at 118, the defendant and Soraya make it home because Soraya texts Zach Farrar. Farrar asks who's taking Marie home. Soraya says she's driving. We know Marie makes it home at 134 from these text messages. And then we get to the critical part of the night. It is just the defendant and Soraya at their home. And we know what happened because of the phone evidence. We know that she starts going through his phone at approximately 2.12 in the morning. And we know that because the photos that are on her phone are screenshots of his phone. And those screenshots tell the story of the timeline, right? They're taken at 2.12 and at 2.14. That's the number visible on his phone when she takes them. And first she goes through his Instagram. And the Instagram is clearly with the girl. He is clearly asking for photos. Show me what you got. He sends a photo. Do you have any more pics? He asks for a photo and she sends one. We know this is a girl that does not have Snapchat. She lives with her parents or her parents control her social media apparently. So she's not living out on her own or being a full adult in the world. But he's carrying on a suspicious relationship on Instagram with this girl. Soraya finds this and is undoubtedly upset because she sends it to herself. She also then goes through his Snapchat and finds these conversations with Cheyenne. And she's doing this about 10 minutes later between 2.21 and 2.22. And then all the way up to 2.24, all of these photographs are found and screenshotted on the defendant's phone and then sent to Soraya's phone. And we know from the defendant that Cheyenne was somebody he had previously been involved with that she had found out about and was upset about and had moved on from. And they're sending partially nude pictures back and forth. And that she's taking all of these screenshots all the way up until 2.24 a.m. The defendant is offering to fly Cheyenne up in the summer. And these are older photos, but of course they make her upset. She sends them to herself. And we know that they get on her phone between 2.18 and 2.24 a.m. And we know that from the records. It's like that's when she's looked at them and sent them to herself. And we also know that the defendant deletes them at 11.30 a.m. the next day. And he tells you he did that because he was embarrassed of them. But ladies and gentlemen, this is the motive. This is the thing that happened just moments before the fatal gunshot. We know 2.40 a.m. Soraya calls Marie either to talk about what was happening or what was going on with their fight. But Marie does not pick up. And just eight minutes later at 2.48 a.m. We hear from Taylor Engstrom on the 911 call. I think I lost my sound through the HDMI, but you recall this 911 phone call, and it was this. Taylor reports a gunshot. He says it's incredibly loud. He said it sounds like it's right outside of his window. He said it sounded like a 9mm, and it sounded very, very close. He was afraid and didn't want to look out his window. And what that tells you, when you evaluate the defendant's testimony that he slept through some gunshot and just woke up later next to Soraya's dead body, it's just, it's not reasonable. But the neighbor, 80 feet away, knew that it was a gunshot and heard it. So the next morning when the defendant gets up, you have to really look in the records. Well, you have to use your common sense. But if you look in the records, it's easy to disprove the defendant's story. He calls himself at 825 AM and likely trying to devise a story about what had happened to her. If she's calling him, she's not with him, right? So he's setting up a trail about what could have happened. And then he searches the Alaska Bush Company homepage, and he actually goes into and visits their homepage at 832 AM. And his description for this, he at first just didn't know. And somewhere on direct examination, he said he, you know, was looking at pornography later because that's where he found comfort. You know, we can't get into his mind. There's a couple of different possible explanations for this. He's trying to plant a story, maybe look at me to see what time they're closing hours so he can say Soraya went thereafter and he wasn't responsible for this. And, you know, somebody else killed her at the Bush Company, who knows? Or he's excited and aroused by what he did and he's going to the Bush Company to look at things. Just the same as he Googled the Castle Megastore. You don't have to know which of those things he meant to know that he's not just finding comfort in the Bush Company webpages. His wife lies dead in the bed next to him. This is at 832 AM. And then at 919 AM, he maps to the Castle Megastore. Again, he's either thinking of a story or getting excited about what he's done. At 1044 AM, he texts Soraya's boss, pretending to be Soraya. And this is where he starts his lies and they never stop. And they don't stop all the way through his testimony yesterday. Hey, this is Soraya. I can't make it into work today. I went to Jimmy's last night and got pretty sure I got food poisoning. From it, I'm so sorry. I would have called Craig, but I don't have his number. But Nadia Jones, right away, is suspicious of this because she does have Craig's number. She's called in to Craig before. And so Nadia already, like the very first time the police talked to her, is suspicious of the defendant's story. Because she knows that Soraya doesn't call in that often. And when she does, she has Craig's number. And we know that from her cell phone that Soraya did have Craig's number saved. She just had it saved under the CEO of Bread and Brew and not his name. And that's why the defendant couldn't find it. So this is at 10 in the morning, 10.44 in the morning. The next thing he knows that, or the next thing he does that we know about is he goes to Fred Meyers for the first time. And he purchases Gatorade, marinara sauce, and everyday living sheets. Gatorade, because he's working off a hangover. Everyday living sheets, because he's got to clean up the bedding and it's a mess. And marinara sauce, again, we don't know why he's purchasing this. Is he purchasing this to make the rest of the transaction look normal? Is he purchasing this because he wants to eat something? There's no noodles or mozzarella sticks with it. Or is he purchasing this because he's 21 years old and the blood that he can't clean up he wants to disguise with spaghetti sauce? You know, if there's things on the floor that he can't quite get up if you run some spaghetti sauce over them. You know, has he created a story for the stains on the carpet? But those are his, the main purchase here is the everyday living sheets that we know end up on the bed. He then does some mapping and some traveling. Ronnie's barber shop, he told you apparently he was just thinking about how he needed a haircut. He went to Waldron Pond and he went to Bancroft Park. And this is where he is scoping out already early in the morning after he's killed her where to hide the body. And that's how you know that this is intentional. When normal people wake up and they, to the situation that the defendant says he found himself in, they don't assume that people are going to think they did it unless they did it. That's not a normal assumption. Normal people are going to say, oh my God, what happened? Let me try and save her. Let me call 911. He didn't. He's taking all of these steps to clean up. And at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, he is already looking for and finding the place that he's going to dump her body. And then, he needs a break in the middle of the day from all of this cleaning. And he goes to the Brown Jug Warehouse. He purchases the bottle of Four Roses and a two-liter bottle of the Coke. And you can go back and watch that video. And you should watch this video in particular, where he's standing in the cashier line at Brown Jug, just so completely unbothered by what he's done and what he's in the middle of doing. Much like his testimony, it's just so callous and so calculated and so unemotional and frankly selfish. Like, this is what he's thinking of in this moment. And then, he texts his dad. And his text messages with his dad are also really telling as to his mindset on that day. He's not scared. If he is, he's scared of what he did and that he's going to get caught. He's not sad that Soraya is dead. He never, never once expresses through his whole testimony or through any of his actions, grief. Not a moment of it. And that's evident when he texts his dad. His dad says, I hope you had fun last night. And he responds, I did. Maybe a little too much fun. And dad's like, well, that's okay as long as no one got hurt or went to jail. And he texts his dad, well, neither of those things happened. And then, he initiates on his own. I ended up getting that small batch of poor roses. And his dad says, sweet. That's a good one. And he met the defendant's mother yesterday. Man, and you have to feel for her. Like, she didn't ask to be in this position. She didn't want to testify. And he didn't want her to come and hear these awful things. But by all accounts, he was adopted into a loving and caring family. People that were supportive of him. People that if he awoke to an accident or a suicide, he could have called for help. His dad is texting him on his birthday, or on the day after, to make sure he had a good night. But the defendant, selfish and narcissistic. Objection. Oh, rude. Sends his dad this picture. He's put ice in the cup. Soraya's body is, at this point, still on the bed. Maybe he's moved her to the bathtub. It's really, you know, at some point, that likely happened from the scene evidence. He didn't disclose that. But her body is in the house, because he hasn't bought that trash can yet. And he forced himself a drink. Not to numb the pain, but because he's thinking of nobody other than himself. At 6.12 p.m., he takes the second trip to Fred Meyer. And he buys what he tells you is hydrogen peroxide in an empty spray bottle to clean up the blood. And he'll twice deodorant and cotton swabs just for his personal hygiene. And he'll be unbothered again why he does this. He uses his loyalty card, so he gets the discount. He goes back to the house. And then, at 8.10 p.m., he realizes he has to actually move this body. And he goes to Lowe's, and he purchases a 96-gallon trash can. That transaction happens at 8.10 p.m. Or 20.10.58 on the register here. And you can see him walking up, checking out, and leaving Lowe's. 10 o'clock, he makes his third trip to Fred Meyer's. He's getting Red Bull, the yellow edition that was seen in his car when the police took photos of it. Because he's tired now. He's been up all day after drinking and murdering his wife all night. And he gets a queen-size mattress pad, because he realizes the sheets aren't going to do it. And he's got to sleep somewhere, right? He's not going to lay on the bed that's soaked in blood. So he gets a queen-size mattress pad as well. Into the evening of Monday, August 7th, so this is the night after he's done all of the cleanup, you can look at his travels, and this is in the cell phone evidence that was introduced. But between 11 p.m. on 8.6 and 5 a.m. on 8.7, he travels over 2,200 meters. You can see the distance traveled. Remember, Detective Patternosa's testimony that in her training and experience, this was reported out of meters. The biggest group here is from 11 p.m. to midnight. But he is moving all night long, all the way up in its reverse chronological order, right? So it starts at 11 p.m. here on the 6th, all the way until 5 in the morning. He is moving all night long, the night of the 6th, morning of the 7th. When you do the math, if there's three feet in a meter, roughly, he travels about 1.36 miles, which makes sense when we know where the body is located. The apartment's right here, the storm drain's right here. You know, that's driving it all the way there. He loaded her into the trash can. He described really, really callously how he did that, how he had to drag her. And if you'll recall when I asked him, like, was that difficult? He doesn't say it was emotionally difficult. He says it wasn't easy. No, it wasn't. That's not a light task. And the storm drain isn't a low storm drain. He put in some physical labor that night to move her to the storm drain. Lazy physical labor, I mean, he took her within sight of his house. But he put in the steps that are documented by his phone. And then, on August 7th, he reports to work like regular. He, if you look at his searching, he's searching the Mount Baldy Trailhead. He's searching for online outdoor clothing, Patagonia, and some other brands. He also views TikTok. And one of the things you'll see he does is he views TikTok and Instagram. And then there's this thing called Linktree, which Detective Patternos didn't know but said, oh, yeah, you can link to people's other social media handles from their page. And he's going to several OnlyFans accounts from there. So what he's doing is he's going to girls' Instagram pages, clicking on their Linktree on their OnlyFans account, and then going to do that. Not because he finds comfort in porn, but because that's just what he does. And he is, again, unbothered, unbothered by what he's done, except for that he doesn't want to get caught. But he knows that people are going to start asking questions, right? In fact, all day long, Marie, yesterday, on Sunday, Marie had been asking questions, seeing if they wanted to go out to brunch, et cetera. And he gave her the thumbs up. Well, her best friend isn't going to go away. He has to tell her that she didn't come home or tell her the story. And that's the first time he's had now 30 hours to think of this lie that she walked to work and didn't come home. And he tells Marie that she didn't come home sometime in the midday. And then Marie catches up with him after work. And that's when we see the first time he's, you know, faking like he's looking for her at 5.02. He just generically searches hospitals on his phone. And then at 5.34, Marie makes the 9-1-1 call. And I don't think my audio is going to work here, but you can recall the phone call where Marie says, I think my friend is missing. And the dispatcher says, you know, and she's relaying the details as she knows them. And the dispatcher even says, why isn't her husband calling? And she puts it on speakerphone so that Zarius can answer the questions. And he tells that story that he began with Marie and never stops after that. That she left for work at 10. She's wearing all black. She had a purse in her wallet with her. She forgot her phone. Critical, critical hole in that story that the detectives pick up on immediately is that text message to Nadia comes in at 10.44. But that's the story he's told, and that's the story he's stuck with. Officer Zang is dispatched, and the defendant lies to him. He tells the exact same lie. She left at 10 a.m. She left her phone. She took her stuff. She's wearing all black. Here's the route she would have walked to Bread and Brew. And he's keeping the police away from Dancroft Park. He's sending them to the side instead of straight up that access road. And then at 7.44, Meredith Barney gets the call that no mother should ever get, that her daughter's missing. And she does what somebody who loves somebody that has suffered an accident does. She gets on the plane immediately without hesitation, and she's in Anchorage the next day. Overnight, her sister comes, and she comes. That is how people who love and cares for somebody that is missing or an accident has happened behave. They don't think, oh, my God, somebody's going to think I did it. That's not something somebody thinks unless, oh, my God, they did it. So Meredith Barney, immediately after that phone call, makes plans when she gets here. And she gets here the next day, Tuesday, August 8. Her and her sister land and meet with the police. And Detective Clark and Detective Elby meet the defendant at his home. And it is not a phenomenal audio with the air conditioning and the dogs barking, but it gives a real sense of how the defendant talked to and interacted with the police. He is casual. He's providing information. He is given every opportunity to say the truth. And he doesn't. He perpetuates this lie that she's missing. But he can feel the walls starting to close because at the end of it, well, because Detective Elby took him back to the bedroom, first of all, and said, can I look under the bed? And he's concerned about potential sex toys that might be under there. We know now that he's concerned about the blood on the bottom of the mattress. But also that the detectives are asking hard questions. They're saying, you know, this timeline doesn't make sense. How is she texting into work if you have her phone? And so he knows his story is falling apart. And that day, a 70 to 80-person search is conducted of the area. So we know he's perpetuated his line to her command, to his command, to Captain Phelan, his friend Dale and Gates. They've all heard this line now. And the military man, they come out in full force. And they walk the park. And the police walk the park. And Meredith and her sister walk the park with the defendant. That day, the detectives are collecting and reviewing traffic cameras. They're contacting witnesses. They're canvassing the area, trying to find Soraya. And what's the defendant doing while all of this is happening? He's looking at many vids, which is, again, pornography. That's how he's spending his time while people are out looking for his wife. On August 8th, he also texts, or Googles, shortcuts for texting on an iPhone. Because he knows the detectives have figured out that she couldn't have texted him to work if he had her phone at 1044. So he's trying to figure out a story for that, which he tells Detective Elby and Detective Lee the next day. But here's where he's figuring that out. He also knows the detectives are closing in on him. And he's getting worried, selfishly concerned about himself and his own salvation. And he Googles for prayer. It says pray, but prayer to say to accept God. On Wednesday, August 9th, the defendant meets with Detective Elby and Detective Lee at the Mockingbird residence outside. And he wants information on that search. You can hear he wants to talk to the dog, the woman that's running the canine track. And he heard that part on the audio where he's like, what are you going to do? What are you going to find? And the woman who's running the dog track says, you know, the rain. We're probably not getting anything the dog couldn't get us in. And maybe he has a sigh of relief there for a moment. But he also that day wants to get inside the house. And at this point, the house is then seized and he's not allowed back in it. And he gives the police the story about Soraya. She must have set up a shortcut on her phone to send that automated text message because she knew she was going to call out. The search warrant is executed at the defendant's home and they find some really, really critical evidence to firearms. And there's this pseudo-suicide note. And you can read it for yourself. He is, again, thinking only of himself in that. He's not saying what really happened to Soraya. He's still pretending that she's missing. And he tells his mom, it's not a suicide note. He tells you all it was. You can read it and make your own decision. But that's found. And there's extensive evidence of cleanup. The mattress is flipped over. There's no sheets in the mattress topper. There's presumptive blood on the floor. And you saw that blue star evidence that is really, really strong evidence of cleanup on the carpet and on the bathroom. And the defendant knows. Like, he calls Detective Clark and says, how long is the search warrant going to be? Are they going to be looking in bags or anything? Like, what are they going to be looking for? He is searching for information. Again, he feels the walls of this investigation closing in on, was anything found by the dogs? Will they be looking in bags and compartments? And he won't provide any new information to Detective Clark to help find his wife. He insists, I already told Detective Elby and detectively everything that I know. And he rushes off the phone. I've got to go. Somebody's calling me. I don't know who it is, but I've got to call him back. And this is what is found in the apartment. And this is where you really get into the defendant's story, the lie that he told you yesterday. It makes absolutely no sense. That this was anything other than a murder and an immediate attempt to clean up. Because there are three distinct pools of blood, right? She has one bullet, like she is shot once in the head, which means she's moved while there's still a fair amount of blood in her to leak out, at least twice while on this day. And you remember Detective Chelsea C. talking about this grip pattern, there's movement from there to there, while there's still sufficient blood to be leaking in that quantity and saturating through the mattress. And you can see all those patterns really succinctly here, and the defendant said, well, it looked different because these slats weren't there before. Yeah, because you flipped it over and it saturated into the wooden slats is exactly what happened there. The detectives also find the carpet shampooer that tests presumptively positive for blood. And you heard from DNA analyst Emily Matthews that this, both the stains on the mattress and the swabs from the carpet cleaner matched Soraya's blood. There's the mop, Detective Clark is looking at the photos as they come out of the crime scene team, and he says, hey, that seems unusual. This isn't a particularly, like, clean home. Why is there a standing mop bucket there? And I think that mop bucket might be at Lowe's. And he Googles it and finds that mop bucket for sale at Lowe's, and Detective Lee's already at Lowe's picking up the trash can information. And he goes and finds that that mop bucket sure is sold there. And then, if we can turn on the lights now, but I do want to talk about this blue star evidence. You've got the hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom, and evidence of blood or cleanup there on the floor. And then you've got the bathtub, and you've seen this home, right? Like, it is not pristine. The second bedroom, frankly, they've let the dogs completely destroy. The kitchen is full of dishes in the sink. The counters have not been cleaned. But this bathtub is pristine. And there is all this evidence of presumptive blood or cleanup on the bathtub, and the floor directly in front of the bathtub, and in the sink. And so this is where the defendant's story, we can turn that back up, please, Madam Clerk. This is where the defendant's story about what he did that day when he was cleaning her up kind of breaks down. She was moved, or there was blood in that bathroom, undoubtedly, or substantial cleanup, and you have to ask yourself why. The other thing the detectives find at the residence is this weapon. And this ends up being, after ballistics testing, the murder weapon. And there's a lot of question about DNA analysis and, like, why we didn't find DNA on this. And a couple things to remember about this gun is, clearly, the defendant possesses it, has it in his hand after the murder. His DNA's going to be on it, regardless if they're even able to get it. They're not able to get DNA off that gun. But also, we know, Jalen Gates said he handled that weapon after. And that's interesting, too, right? Like, that the defendant is, his friend is offering to go out to search with him, and they're going to take weapons just in case. And the defendant says to Mr. Gates, why don't you take this one? And has his friend handle that weapon. Obscuring evidence, if he's thinking that far ahead, there's something to think about. It's interesting that the murder weapon is the weapon that he would put in his friend's hand afterwards. That states, except at 26. The police also find this suicide note here. It says, I'm writing this just in case what's going on with my wife becomes too much for me to handle. I've always said, since we met, that I couldn't live life without her. And I want whoever finds this note to please make sure my dogs are taken care of. I want that to be the main priority. To all of my family members and loved ones, I'm sorry I wasn't mentally strong enough to handle the weight of what's going on. What's going on is that he murdered his wife. Not that she's missing. Not that she suffered an accident. I loved Sariah, but I've prepared for the worst, unfortunately. Please make sure that if Sariah is found, rather it be dead or alive, that we get buried next to each other, please. Finally, to Sariah, if you are alive. It's so weird. He's writing this note, knowing that she's dead. That's some real cognitive dissonance, right? Like separating yourself from the thing that you did. He's been telling this lies for days. He perpetuated it on the stand because that's how you deal with it, right? Like, if you're dead or alive, we get buried next to each other. Finally, to Sariah, if you are alive and receive this news, I'll see you in the next life. Honey, bunny, I love you the most. It's a pseudo-suicide note. He tells his mom it's not a suicide note. It's clearly, he's contemplating, you know, ending his life because of the weight of the guilt of what he did. Not the weight of finding her dead. He's never said he's grief-stricken about her, ever. He was asked 15 times yesterday how he was feeling. He never said sad. He never said grief-stricken. He never said mournful. His mom was asked, and all the times you've talked to him since this, has he ever said he missed Sariah? No. He is contemplating killing himself because of the weight of the guilt of what he did. He doesn't want to go to jail. He doesn't want to get caught. He is committed murder. He also does want to be on suicide protocol in jail because that's hard. They isolate you. And that's why he tells the folks at jail and his mom that this isn't a suicide note. You all can make your own conclusions about it. The state suggests it's indicative of some real cognitive dissonance. Somebody trying to make peace with what they've done because it's too awful to think about. He also writes a note to the people working the case that he's really sorry that the info he gave wasn't the best. And hopefully my wife turns up. But I'm telling you now that I have no clue what could have happened to the Sariah. And I truthfully can make that statement. When I asked him yesterday, and this is where truly, like, your deliberations stop. I'm like, you don't know that you didn't pull the trigger, do you? And he said, no, he doesn't know. So all this opening statement and questions about whether it was suicide or an accident, that's not real. There's no evidence that this was suicide. There's no evidence that this was an accident. And he knows it. And he knew it when he took the stand. And so then we get to Thursday, August 10th. The detectives know that her body's got to be close. There's the blood under the mattress. They don't have it yet, though, and we can't. It's really hard to charge murder when you don't know for certain that the person's dead. So he is being watched by the people on base. Somebody's checking in with him every two hours. And the cops are working hard. We've got to find her. We know that he's purchased a trash can at Lowe's. And lo and behold, A-1 Landscaping finds that trash can. The man just steps away from the storm drain. And that trash can is processed by a really, really experienced and good crime scene team. And they find two pieces of organic material that they send to the crime lab. Everybody calls it organic material. I don't know why we're fighting about that term. It looks like sloughed skin, but there's not a test for that. But it's organic material. It's not paper. It's not Clorox wipes. And what it does have on it is Soraya's blood, two pieces of organic material and what appears to be blood in the bottom of that. And then shortly after they're finished processing this on the tent, Detective Chakowsky is out. They've flown the drones all day. They're looking for her. They can't find her. And he is standing just yards away from that storm drain. And he says, Officer, remember, can I have your flashlight? Presuming somebody might have looked in there before. And they find Soraya's body dumped in the most callous way possible. She is thrown 15 feet down. He didn't place her in that storm drain. He did nothing lovingly about this. He took her in a trash can and levered her over the top of that storm drain and dumped her 15 feet down to cover what he did. And the detectives find that. And they find it. It's callous and lazy. So close to the apartment. So close to the apartment. And now, now he's done. And the detectives take him into custody and take his DNA and take his fingerprints. And he's charged with murder. And you all are going to evaluate the evidence. And you're going to decide that he committed intentional murder. The evidence you have to evaluate all divided into kind of a couple of categories. The first you have is testimonial evidence. You have Soraya and the defendant's friends, her co-workers, and her mom. And what we know from all of this testimonial evidence is that she was a positive person. She was happy when she went out that night. They weren't having more than normal marital trouble. Meaning she found text messages to a girl before and gotten over it. And there hadn't been anything that summer. We know from his mom that she was there, you know, just a month before this happened. And they seemed to be getting along. And she loved Soraya. Soraya was a happy, positive, good person. She was planning for her future. She was enrolled in school. She wanted to go into medicine. She was in the Army to be in the Army National Guard to become a combat medic. That's why she came up to Alaska. So they didn't pay for some of that schooling. She was planning for her future. She was not suicidal at all. There's no evidence of this. And in the group, she's the most sober. She didn't, like, make some drunken, outrageous decision to take her own life. Or she's also weapons trained, right? She didn't handle that weapon and have it go off accidentally because she was mad. She's the most sober of this group, and she's got no reason to do that. What she does have a reason to do is confront her husband about being unfaithful essentially since they got married, right? She's undoubtedly mad about that. She calls her friend, and she's going to talk to him about it. And he responded violently. But we know that the defendant was intoxicated from this testimonial evidence. But he's not completely out of it. He knows that he's the one that wants to go home. He's passing out and waking up and saying thanks for the good night in the Uber. And he walks on his own two feet with Saraya's assistance into the house. He's aware of his surroundings. We have the crime scene evidence that we've talked about extensively. We have the weapons, the flipped mattress, the evidence of cleanup, the suicide note. We have the recovered trash can. And we have the storm drain. All of those different scenes were processed by an exceptionally well-trained and professional team. And then the defendant's vehicle that has the gas can in the back of it. And the detectives are like, hey, that's weird because we smell gas. And sure enough, they did. The defendant admits that he poured gas on that bedding because he was going to burn it. And then you have the testimony of the state medical examiner. And here, between the state medical examiner and the ballistics expert, Samantha Castle, that's where the rubber meets the road on was this intentional or was this accidental as far as physical evidence goes. And he tells you, and his whole job is to determine cause and manner of death. And he has to do so to a high degree of medical certainty. And he has to sign a death certificate that says those things. Suicide and undetermined are options for him. And they're options that he uses. And he decided, in his medical expertise, after doing a full head-to-toe autopsy of Saraya's body, that her cause of death was the single penetrating gunshot wound to the left forehead. And that positioning on the left forehead becomes really critical when we talk about intentionality. And the manner of death that he certifies as homicide. He signed with his MD after it that this was a homicide. And that means at the hands of somebody else. And he did so because it is an intermediate range gunshot wound. It is not a contact wound. And Detective Clark told you, he has responded to hundreds of suicides. I've never seen a suicide that wasn't a contact wound. And a contact wound looks very different. It has a real distinct pattern of burning and soot right around the gunshot. And it's awful and terrible to look at and think about. But this isn't a contact wound. And it's not a near contact wound. It's an intermediate distance. She's got a pattern of stifling, which is those burnt gun particles outside of the left side of her head that goes out nine centimeters. So, he said suicide is improbable. And he certified the death as a homicide. And I want to look at that photograph again just so you can look at it. There is no evidence of a contact wound there. Both he and the ballistics expert said that it's not contact and it's not near contact, which means it is, according to the ballistics expert, probably about six inches out. And you're going to have that orange dummy gun back in the jury room. You can't put your hand in this position, release the safety, and pull that trigger. Like a gun pulls back and this hurts. It is unnatural to do, especially with your dominant hand. And it's bad with your non-dominant hand, too, to get that pattern that starts here and goes out here. Like, it's just not a way that people kill themselves. It's not a way that the detective has ever seen somebody kill themselves. And the medical examiner said it's just, it's not a contact wound. This isn't a suicide and it wasn't done by Soraya's own hand. And then we have the crime lab evidence. First, we have Aaron Clay. He looked at latent prints. The only usable prints we had were on that Glock case. This just shows that the state, I mean, they pulled out all the stops. They tried to find all of the evidence that they possibly could. And what we got was to impress off the Glock case that we couldn't, that were able to be matched to Mr. Hildebrand. We're going to talk a lot about his credibility. And we have talked a lot about his credibility. But man, when he wouldn't answer whose Glock that was, it was weird. It was weird. It has nothing to do with the case, like that Glock wasn't used in this incident. But when you're deciding, like, is somebody being truthful to you? Like, he knows whose weapon that is. I'm not pushing it because, frankly, the state doesn't care because it's not part of the evidence in this case. But it's really weird that he wouldn't say it. And then you have Samantha Castle. She did ballistics. And she identified the murder weapon, that six Sawyer, as the gun that fired the bullet fragments that were found in Soraya's brain and her skull. And she did muzzle-to-target-distance testing. And you can go back and compare, like, that autopsy photo and the Nagahai test that she did. And she says, you know, I can say it's further away than contact, less than 12 inches, probably closest to 6 inches. And you can look at that, and that's borne out by that testing. And then you can think, is this reasonable? And it's not for a suicide. And then you have the expert testimony of Dr. Emily Matthews. And there's no blood on that Sig Sawyer, no blood on that murder weapon. And so that tells you it might be further out than 6 inches, right, because you would expect some blowback. But certainly not closer. And it's certainly not contact, because there's no blood on that gun that you would expect if it were. A contact wound. But she also testified that there was blood and DNA matching Soraya Hildebrand on the mattress, on the swaps from the carpet shampooer, and on the organic material from the trash can. All things that helped put the story together about what the defendant did, both during the homicide and after. Both during the homicide and after. And that's what we want to talk about when we talk about intent, when we talk about motive. You have a jury instruction, it's in the packet, it's instruction number 31. And it says that motive is not an element of the crime charged, or any of the crimes charged. However, presence of motive may tend to establish guilt. And absence of motive may tend to establish innocence. You make, therefore, give its presence or absence the way you believe it should have as evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, the state submits that those Snapchat records with Cheyenne, who Soraya had known about before, but the Instagram messages with somebody else who appears to be younger, are certainly evidence of motive. The defendant is messaging two different women, asking to exchange nude photographs, and she caught him. She caught him and she was done. And that is why he killed her. We don't have to prove motive, but it helps. It helps you decide in that moment when he pulled the trigger, did he mean to do it. So, motive is an indicator of intentional conduct. She found out he had been cheating, she tried to call Murray, she confronted him, and eight minutes later she's dead. And we know, from the medical examiner, that that gunshot wound would have killed her instantly. And that's how we know that he's moving her around on the bed, while she's still bleeding, because she's not moving herself. That wound would have killed her instantly. I've talked a little bit about this, but we have to confront voluntary intoxication. And Instruction 29 lays out all of the mental states for you. Voluntary intoxication is not a defense to knowing reckless or criminally negligent crimes. So it's not a defense at all to murder two, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide. It's just not. It can be to murder one, if you find that he was so drunk that he couldn't form the intent. It may be offered in court to negate an element of the defense that requires a defendant to have acted intentionally. So was he so intoxicated that he couldn't inform the intent to kill? Absolutely not. He was responsive to his friends in the Uber. He was oriented to time, place, and people. He had a motive to kill. Saria caught him cheating just moments before the deadly shot. And selective amnesia, I said it before, is a coward's way to deal with uncomfortable truths. The things that he chose to remember and not remember are concerning, right? He can't remember where he found the gun or if he cleaned it. But supposedly he's up and on the phone and knows she's dead in the morning. Like, what he's choosing to remember and not remember are about convenience and about difficulty, not about the truth. His actions afterward are evidence of his intent at the time. Nobody that wakes up to a shock of their partner dead says, Oh my God, people are going to presume I did it. Unless, oh my God, you did it. Normal people would wake up and try and help. A reasonable person would wake up and call 911. A reasonable person would be sad and grief-stricken. The defendant's story is not reasonable. His selective amnesia is just a means of cognitive dissonance. It's what he wants to tell himself because it makes him feel better about it. His actions afterwards, when he right away starts Googling the Bush Company and the Castle Megastore and texting into work and buying cleaning supplies and having a drink and purchasing a garbage can and dumping her body down a storm drain are evidence that he killed her and he was covering it up. And being blackout drunk does not absolve him of liability. Like, it's his 21st birthday, absolutely. But he, being blackout drunk, is not necessarily a defense. His testimony was that he routinely has done things while he's drunk that he doesn't remember. And it is his habit to get up in the morning and check his social medias and check his bank to see what happened. You know, it's Amazon Prime Day. If he made $1,000 worth of purchases last night while he's drunk, Amazon's not going to forgive them. In the moment, when he's really drunk, he can intend what he's doing and forget it. Like, just because his brain's not recording the memory because he's so drunk doesn't mean that when he was drunk he didn't intend to do it. He intended to kill her because she confronted him about cheating. He's still guilty if he meant to do it in the moment, even if you believe that he can't remember it. But there's no reason to believe he can't remember it. He can remember. He remembers specific details all the way up until it's convenient to forget. He remembers details after, unless it's inconvenient, like if he cleaned the gun. And his testimony was absolutely unconvincing. He was callous. He was unfeeling. He was selfish. And it was scripted. When asked about what happened in various times that wasn't a script for him, he couldn't tell. But when he's on script, he could tell you. And that's a thing that you can ascertain for yourself. But think about the way he talked about Soraya. He didn't call her by name. He said, my wife, repeatedly about her. He didn't say, if he ever used her name, it was my wife Soraya. She wasn't her own independent being to him in that testimony. The other thing, when he talked about her body, called it it a lot. Like, he's cognitive dissonance to the max, right? Like, it was all about, what are you feeling? I'm feeling guilt. I'm feeling afraid. It was never about this life that he took and the life that she's not having because of him. It was incredibly selfish and narcissistic. And instruction number, I want to say it's number 10, talks about witness credibility. And it's worth looking at, just because these are all things that I think jurors normally think about when you're evaluating if somebody is credible as a witness. And it tells you just a number of things that you should evaluate. Their attitude, behavior, appearance on the stand, and the way they testify. You can consider his attitude, appearance, behavior on the stand, and the way he testified. You can consider, number four, the accuracy of his memory. Any motive he has to not tell the truth. And the consistency of his testimony, number 10. And whether it is supported or contradicted by other evidence. And all of these things will lead you to believe that the defense is unreasonable and is guilty of murder in the first degree.
[01:04:15] Speaker 2: Objection.
[01:04:19] Speaker 1: And the defendant told his mom that he would come in here and work his magic on you, do what he's done his whole life. And you heard her say, make them feel for you. And he said, yeah, what I've done my whole life. Ladies and gentlemen, do not let him work his magic. He knows exactly what he did. This was intentional.
[01:05:00] Speaker 3: Does Lars think you have a good chance if you go to trial?
[01:05:03] Speaker ?: Oh.
[01:05:04] Speaker 3: Oh. Oh, okay. That's if I can be on the clock and tell a testimony. Tell him, you know.
[01:05:15] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:05:15] Speaker 3: If I can be on the stand. I don't want to say work my magic, but. Yeah, I know what you mean. Make the jury, yeah. You know. Feel for you. I know. I can do what I can do in my whole life, essentially, but I don't know if I can do that with this. So. Yeah, I know. I don't know if I can take a problem. Okay.
[01:05:36] Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this wasn't suicide. It wasn't an accident. It was intentional murder. It was murder in the first degree. It was also extremely reckless murder as charged in count two, murder in the second degree. You can vote on that separate and distinct from count one, and it, and he obviously tampered with evidence. The state submits that after you deliberate and look at all of the evidence in front of you, you will find you guilty of all three, or all four charges. Thank you.
[01:06:06] Speaker 2: Thank you. Counselor Brooks, please. Homicide, suicide, or accident. The evidence in this case has shown that these are the three plausible manners of death that could explain how Ms. Soraya Hildebrand passed away. Homicide, suicide, and accident. The beginning of this case, I told you, this case involves the tragedy of a young woman's life being lost to an accident. You've now heard all of the evidence in this case, and I submit to you that it is reasonable to believe that Soraya's death was an accident. An accident that was not caused by Mr. Hildebrand, but unfortunately by Soraya herself. And because there is reasonable doubt in this case about the manner of Soraya's death. There is reasonable doubt to every theory of homicide that the government has presented you with. From intentional murder to criminally negligent homicide. There is reasonable doubt about the element of causation. Every one of those theories, murder one, murder two, manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide, all require you to find as a jury that the government has shown through proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Hildebrand caused the death of Mrs. Hildebrand. And I submit to you, there is doubt about cause, because there is doubt about manner. There are times where common sense is betrayed to trauma, leading to choices that in hindsight are objectively wrong. This is part of the human experience. And you have seen that in this case. What other human experiences have you seen demonstrated throughout this case? Let's talk a little bit about lying. You have seen quite a few lies in this case. You saw Marie, for example, admit that she lied to Mr. Rice. And Marie's motivation to lie at that time was because she wanted to get information. Who else did we see lie? We saw Detective Clark admit that he lies based off his training and experience in the course of this investigation. And the reason Detective Clark lied is to try and get information efficiently. Lies can show a lot of things. What's important is what is the motivation for the lie. The government would have you believe that a lie must be evidence of guilt. I submit to you that lies can mean a lot of things. And they don't always mean guilt. No one here thinks that Marie is guilty of a crime, even though she told a lie to get information. No one believes Detective Clark committed a crime, even though we know he told a lie to try and get information. And I submit to you that the mere fact that Mr. Hildebrand has lied does not mean that he is guilty. What you need to look at is the motivation behind the lie. And that is what this case is about, the fear. In his panic and fear, Zarius made some mistakes, some abysmal choices. But these choices and mistakes should not be seen as evidence that Zarius killed his wife. They should be seen as evidence of what they are. Evidence of fear. And what was reasonable at the time that Zarius did the things that you heard him say he did was that fear. I submit to you, you need to look no further than the opinion of the medical examiner, the bias of Detective Clark, and the state's closing argument to understand that fear. Fear. So why was Zarius's fear reasonable? What was Zarius afraid of? He was afraid of being accused. When he woke up, he did not know what happened the night before. Everyone wants you to look at a timeline and wants you to believe that Mr. Hildebrand was immediately looking at pornographic materials after he found his wife deceased. But go back and listen to what Mr. Hildebrand actually said. When Mr. Hildebrand woke up, he looked for his phone. He couldn't find it. But Zarius's phone was there. Mr. Hildebrand got out of bed, used Zarius's phone to call himself. He called himself twice. And those calls were not answered. I submit to you, it is reasonable for a person to call themselves when they can't find their phone. Then what happens? Mr. Hildebrand can't remember what happened the night before. So he goes and he looks in his phone. He can't remember everything he looked at. Because this happened almost three years ago. Because he was still drunk when he woke up. And because what would happen next was a traumatic experience. And I submit to you, use your reasoning common sense here. Trauma affects people differently. Trauma affects memories. Trauma affects our ability to recollect and perceive things. The government wants to call Zarius a coward. Because he can't remember everything perfectly. I submit to you, that just demonstrates the government's bias in this case. Mr. Hildebrand looks through his phone. It's likely that in that process, he went on the Bush company website before he finds Zarius. What else does he find when he looks on his phone? He finds the Snapchats. And he knows, uh-oh. I'm busted. And that's what the government wants you to believe is a motivation to kill someone. Snapchat and Instagram photos. But that's not what Zarius did. Zarius went to go talk to his wife about these photos to try to make it better. And that is when Zarius discovered that his wife was deceased in their bed. That is when the panic and the fear hit him. What was the first thing he did? He checked for her pulse. If he had killed her the night before, why would he check her pulse? You would think he would have known that she was deceased. But he checked for her pulse. And then there's panic. And there's fear. Because he doesn't know what happened. What will people think he did? That was a reasonable fear. And Zarius wanted to protect the people he loved from the pain of having someone that they care about be accused of doing something horrible. Zarius wanted to protect himself. And Zarius made objectively bad mistakes trying to do so. Trying to protect the people he loved. Trying to protect him. That doesn't make him a killer. So let's talk about what the evidence in this case objectively shows. Let's talk about Dr. Gallagher. I want to talk about Dr. Gallagher's opinion. And I want to talk about why you should not rely upon that opinion in deciding if the manner of death in this case was actually a homicide. So we go back to Dr. Gallagher's testimony. If you recall, the main thing the medical examiner does, a pathologist, is they determine the cause and the manner of death. If you remember, if you remember, cause is the medical reason for death.
[01:17:44] Speaker ?: If you remember, cause is the medical reason for death.
[01:17:44] Speaker 2: If you remember, cause is the medical reason for death. If you remember, cause is the medical reason for death. Manor looks at the reasons beyond medicine, circumstances surrounding the cause of death. Cause of death is not in dispute in this case from the pathological perspective. It is undisputable that Soraya died from a single gunshot wound to her head. What is in dispute here is the manner of death. The how. How did that gunshot wound happen? And we learned a lot of things from Dr. Gallagher. We learned a lot about pathology. We learned from pathology textbooks, a pathology textbook. And what we learned from Dr. Gallagher is that there are multiple classifications for manner of death. We have accidental, homicide, suicide, undetermined, and natural causes. And in this case, we learned that the accidental manner of death could include the taking of one's own life unintentionally. Accidental, accident, can include the unintentional taking of one's own life. We learned that Dr. Gallagher is busy. Yes, he has training. Yes, he has experience. But Dr. Gallagher is a busy guy. We heard he does somewhere around 250 autopsies a year. Think about how many autopsies a day that would come out to in working hours. We heard that his memory is not always the best. He had a hard time recalling a conversation that Dr. Gallagher and I had had just a few months ago. Not because he's trying to lie, but because memory fades over time. And Dr. Gallagher is busy. We heard that Dr. Gallagher writes reports. He relies on those reports, which is fair. When you're that busy, you need to be able to document and refer to things. But Dr. Gallagher is so busy that he doesn't have time to correct typos. And as a result, in this case, there was an error in his report. What else did we learn from Dr. Gallagher? Language varies in pathology, at least according to one reliable treatise. And you heard Dr. Gallagher read from the treatise in this case into the record. And I want to take you back to some of the things that we learned from Spitz and Fitcher's Medical Legal Investigation of Death, the fifth edition. The terminology most often used to describe the range of fire is as follows. A contact shot when the weapon is fired with the muzzle in contact with the body. A close-range shot when gun smoke is deposited on the target. And a distant shot when the muzzle-to-target distance exceeds the limit in which gun smoke is identifiable on the target. That is, the textbook language. And Dr. Gallagher was familiar with the textbook language, although he does not necessarily use it in his practice. He knew what a close-range shot was. He told you he doesn't use distance range in his practice, but he knew what a close-range shot was. We learned about range of fire from Dr. Gallagher. And range of fire would be defined as the distance from the muzzle of the gun to the object, correct?
[01:22:42] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[01:22:43] Speaker 2: And for a close-range shot, some circumstances, a close-range shot could be ruled a homicide, correct?
[01:23:00] Speaker 1: Yes.
[01:23:02] Speaker 2: Some circumstances, a close-range shot could be ruled a suicide.
[01:23:08] Speaker 3: Yes.
[01:23:08] Speaker 2: And in some circumstances, a close-range shot could be ruled an accident. Yes. In some circumstances, a close-range shot can be an accident. What else did we learn from Dr. Gallagher? We learned that the distinction between homicide, suicide, or accident may be difficult and sometimes impossible. Certain criteria are used by pathologists to define the manner of death. Among these, evaluation of the range of fire is of the utmost importance. What else did we learn? We learned that accurate assessment of the range of fire requires test firing of the gun with the type of ammunition that was used in the shooting. We learned that the distance from which a close-range shot was fired can be evaluated only by test firing the particular weapon using the same type of ammunition as that used in the shooting case under consideration. Why does this matter? Why does this matter? Because the evidence shows that Soraya died from a close-range shot because there was stippling. Gun smoke was deposited in the area around her forehead. We learned from Dr. Gallagher that a major factor of his opinion on Soraya's manner of death was his personal assessment of the range of fire. Do you recall me asking you the question, besides the stippling and your determination that this was an intermediate gunshot wound, what other facts were you relying on to determine that this was classified as a homicide? Do you recall that question?
[01:25:45] Speaker 3: Not particularly, but all of our cases are signed out with review of the autopsy findings, toxicology findings, investigative findings, and medical histories, if they're pertinent. All that's put together before the certification to determine the cause of the manor.
[01:26:09] Speaker 2: And you recall in that conversation, responding to that question, well, certainly like you mentioned, where she was found is certainly an unusual location, but the main finding of a gunshot wound that is further away that an individual holding the gun should be able to accomplish on one's own self is a major factor in the determination of the manor. Range of fire was a major factor in Dr. Gallagher's opinion. But if you recall from Dr. Gallagher's testimony, he based his assessment of range of fire, not on a test fire, but on his training and experience, and I'm looking at the sibling. If you recall, he also said that he would defer to a ballistics expert if their opinion was different. If you recall, he estimated that the range of fire in this case was approximately two feet. But what did we learn from Ms. Castle, the ballistic expert, the person who actually did test fire? We learned from Ms. Castle that the muzzle-to-target distance was not contact, up to 12 inches, most likely six. Soraya died from a close-range gunshot wound. Six, uh, from not contact to 12 inches, to six inches from her head. We also learned from Ms. Castle that the gunshot was slightly upward. Dr. Gallagher was slightly upward. Why does this matter? Because when it can be next to impossible to distinguish between homicide, suicide, and accident, and determining the range of fire is of the utmost importance, the range of fire in this case matters. And Dr. Gallagher's opinion on matter is not reliable because Dr. Gallagher's opinion on the range of fire was not accurate. Dr. Gallagher has a lot of training and experience, and we learned a lot from him. But we also learned he did not do the muzzle-to-target distance testing. He did not go to the crime scene alleged by the government. And he came to a manner of death based off an opinion that was not correct. Homicide, suicide, or accident. Homicide, suicide, or accident. We cannot rely on Dr. Gallagher to say that this was a homicide. The government wants you to believe this was a homicide. They want you to believe in motive. They want you to believe that Mr. Hildebrand was able to get a gun six to 12 inches away from his wife and kill her without leaving a single defensive wound on Mrs. Hildebrand. And let's talk about the circumstances surrounding 2.48 a.m. Let's talk about what led up to that. Let's talk about Mr. Hildebrand. You heard from multiple witnesses, both from the state and the defense, that Mr. Hildebrand is not a violent person. And that was never contradicted. The government could have contradicted that if they had evidence of that. But you are allowed to consider the absence of evidence. So what do we know about Mr. Hildebrand? We have contradicted evidence for multiple people in this case that he was not a violent person. In fact, we heard that when he gets upset, he shuts down. Not a single witness ever heard fighting or arguing from that apartment. You heard how officers canvassed the area. You heard some left cards. They get calls back. They knocked on doors. They talked to people. Not a single neighbor heard an argument that night. Or ever. We heard that although Mr. Hildebrand makes mistakes when it comes to cheating, Soraya had gotten over those. They were, for the most part, a normal newlywed couple. And on August 6th, 2023, at 12.07 a.m., that was done. Mr. Hildebrand, clearly intoxicated. Soraya, happy with him. The government wants you to believe that they went from Plaintiff's Exhibit 297 at 12.07 a.m. To Plaintiff's Exhibit 298 at 12.55 a.m. What did you hear about Zarius? What do you see? Zarius was so intoxicated, he could not get into the gaslight. The gaslight. He threw up in the Uber. He is sleeping. He threw up getting out of the Uber. He had to get help inside of the apartment. And they want you to believe that by 2.45 a.m., a mere hour and 55 minutes after this, this nonviolent person turned into a man who was mentally able to form a conscious objective and physically able to take a gun and get himself 6 to 12 inches from Soraya's head while she's on her bed and pull the trigger again without leaving a single defensive wound on Soraya. In an hour and 55 minutes from that. And they want you to make that determination not on evidence. They want you to believe there was a fight. And that is where the bias comes out. The bias that has permeated this case from the beginning. the bias because of an opinion that Mr. Hildebrand doesn't act like a normal person. What is the normal person? What is the normal circumstance? Was the situation that Mr. Hildebrand was in in that morning, was that normal? There simply is not a normal response to what Mr. Hildebrand told you he found on August 6. You heard the government call Mr. Hildebrand selfish, you've heard him, them call him a coward, a narcissist. Because they don't think he's normal. But think about what was really going on that night. To believe the government's narrative that this could be an intentional homicide, an intentional murder, makes about as much sense as believing that Soraya's death was a suicide.
[01:37:23] Speaker ?: So what does that mean?
[01:37:33] Speaker 2: Homicide, suicide, and an accident. There's no motive for murder. This isn't a suicide, so what does that leave us with? With the evidence in this case, with the 6 to 12 inch range of fire. What does that leave us? Accident. And what evidence supports that this could have been an accident? What do we know? We know Soraya was awake. She was awake. She was sending text messages to herself. She was taking screenshots on Mr. Hildebrand's phone. And the reason Soraya Hildebrand had Mr. Zarius' Hildebrand's phone is because Zarius was not awake. Because Zarius keeps his phone on him like any other 21 year old. Glued to their phone. How do you know that Zarius was asleep? Because Soraya had his phone. The evidence is clear that Soraya had his phone. Soraya was the least intoxicated. We heard evidence and testimony that the firearms were not in their normal location. We heard that when the firearm was found, the safety was off. We heard that both Soraya and Zarius used this gun. And we heard that the direction of ejection was up and to the right. And so every time the government has talked to you about what this could have looked like, they want you to think this. I submit to you that this was an accident. Soraya had the gun. She went to the bedroom. She was messing around on it. And accidentally discharged the firearm. Not intentionally. But accidentally.
[01:40:20] Speaker ?: Up.
[01:40:26] Speaker 2: And to the right. That is what Ms. Cassel testified to. And how do you know that Zarius was asleep when this happened? Look at his cell phone records. Look at Soraya's cell phone records. Look at the gap in time of movement. on August 6, 2023, in the early morning hours. There is a brief moment after 2:48, where Zarius's phone moves. What do we hear? Where were Zarius's pants in the morning? He woke up in his underwear and his pants were not in the bedroom. They were over by the bathroom and they were wet. Sir Hildebrandt was so drunk he tried to get up and go to the bathroom and couldn't make it. He was so drunk he didn't know what happened to his wife that night. And the absence of any movement on those records in the hours directly after the 911 call show Zarius was not functioning until he woke up and called himself on his phone, on Zarius phone. "Homicide, suicide, or accident." "Homicide, suicide, or accident." Zarius told you he didn't know. Zarius made a lot of mistakes. He did a lot of thoughtless things. But his fear was reasonable. It doesn't make what he did reasonable. It doesn't make what he did reasonable. But the fear, that was a reasonable fear. And he told you the mistakes he made. And if he was lying to you, don't you think a better lie would be I didn't do it? It wasn't me. It wasn't me. I don't know. He doesn't know because he has no memory. And not a single witness could tell you. That they saw who pulled the trigger on that gun. Homicide, suicide, or accident. This case is about reasonable doubt. Because this could be an accident. Reasonable doubt isn't based on what normal people do. Reasonable doubt is based on reason and common sense. It is based on the absence of evidence. And so I want to talk a little bit more. About. Juror instruction number three. There's no saying that you never really understand a man. Until you walk a mile in their shoes. And in this trial you have heard from Zarius. You have heard of his fear and shame. You've observed through this trial a mile of Mr. Hildebrand's mistakes. But none of those mistakes were murder. The fundamental obligation of jurors in a criminal trial. Is to apply the presumption of innocence. And the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We talked about this in jury instruction. We talked about being objective. We talked about taking an oath. And you all did take an oath in this case. And in jury selection I talked to you a little bit about the different standards we have in law. I didn't talk to you about probable cause. But we've heard about probable cause in this case. Probable cause is the standard that applies when the government wants to get a warrant to search a home. Probable cause. Probable cause. We've heard. When we were doing jury selection we talked about preponderance of evidence. If you recall that. Preponderance of evidence means more likely than not. 51% chance. Probably. Likely. But it's not enough that you believe a defendant is probably or likely guilty. In jury selection we talked about clear and convincing evidence. Which is more than a preponderance. But lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. We talked about different areas of law that clear and convincing can apply. We talked about how in non-Indian child welfare act cases. Clear and convincing evidence is what is required for the government to show. Before they can terminate the legal relationship between a parent and a child. It requires a strong probability. And we know that reasonable doubt requires more. It is not enough that you believe a defendant is probably or likely guilty. Or even that the evidence shows a strong probability of guilt. The law requires more. And there's just not more here. Homicide. Suicide. Or accident. Those are the three plausible manners of death in this case. And. Saraya's death. Could have been the result of a self-inflicted accident. It's a reasonable inference to draw from this case. Don't get distracted by the emotion. Mr. Hildebrand simply asks that you do what you said you would do at the beginning of this case. When you took your trigger oath. It asks that you be objective. Don't let your emotion distract you. From the doubt. In this case. Mr. Hildebrand made mistakes. And he owned those mistakes. In front of you. Those mistakes. Don't make. Murder. Objectively. The government has not shown. Their case. Through proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that is why. We ask. When you go back. And deliberate. To take your time. There is only one verdict that should be returned in this case. And that is not guilty. On every count. Thank you.
[01:50:52] Speaker 3: Thumb up.
[01:50:53] Speaker 1: Yes sir. The defendant would have you believe that this case is about a series of just unfortunate choices and mistakes. What a belittling and trivializing way to think about this. The defendant cheated on his wife. He got drunk. He got caught. He pulled a gun on her. He pulled the trigger six to 12 inches from her head. And then he cleaned up the apartment. He searched porn. He drove all over town getting cleaning supplies in a 96 gallon garbage can. And then he dumped her body in a storm drain. And then he reported her missing and walked through the woods with her mother searching for her. These are not choices and mistakes. These are evidence of intent. Evidence of intentional murder. To say that he did not know what happened is frankly what he has to say because he's caught on video all over town. Right? Like we know that there's only two people in that apartment. No matter how many people Miss Brewster asked if they heard or saw the gun being fired. We know there's only two people in that apartment. To say he didn't know is unreasonable. First of all, it's not a defense. Like I talked about. You can do things in the moment and not remember them later. And if you meant them in the moment, you're still responsible. And that at best gets him to murder in the second degree. But that's not what happened. It is unreasonable to think that a 9mm weapon went off inches from his head and he didn't hear it. The neighbor across the courtyard is calling it in, but he didn't wake up to this tragic accident. That's just not what happened. It's not reasonable. Miss Brewster has said many, many times there's no evidence of a confrontation that they fought about this. You don't have to have a loud yelling fight to have a confrontation. There's no evidence that Soraya was a loud yelling person. The evidence of the confrontation is the messages on Snapchat that she clearly sent to herself. The evidence of the second woman that she, for all we know, didn't know about before she saw the Instagram messages and the bullet in her head. That's the evidence of the confrontation. So let's talk about whether this is an accident. Whether Soraya just like handled this gun and accidentally shot herself in the head. There's no evidence at all that she ever handled the gun. Zero. The only evidence we have is the defendant says she's fired it before. We don't have her DNA on the gun. We tested it. Nobody's ever seen her other than him with it. There's no evidence that she ever handled the gun. We also know she's not terribly drunk. Why would she be playing with it? Why would she pick up this gun in that moment? No rational reason for it. What we do know is that guns are on the defendant's mind. He's searching them all day that day before they go out. All kinds of different armors. He's looking at Springfield XDs. And he's looking at this particular gun manufacturer at 3:42 in the afternoon. Guns are on his drunk mind. He's the one that has it in his hand. And she's trained and professionally trained in handgun usage. The idea that she would have this kind of accident doesn't make sense. And his response to it is the main thing that proves it wasn't an accident. If it was an accident, you don't think, "Man, people are going to think the worst of me and think that I did it." That makes no sense. It's not that he's not normal. He's not reasonable. And that's what reasonable doubt comes down to, right? We're going to put 12 of your heads together. Use your common sense and your reason. What you know about the way the world works. And say, "Is this explanation reasonable?" And if it's not, you do not have a reasonable doubt. It's not reasonable to think it was an accident that he slept through and woke up to in the morning. And then the final thing I want to address, because this is really an important evidentiary point that is just grossly misstated, is the Dr. Gallagher-Samantha Castle testimony. When the defense talks about the ejection pattern, that's the pattern of the shell casing leaving the gun. That is up and to the right. That is different than the trajectory of the bullet into her head. The trajectory of the bullet into her head is what the medical examiner looks at. And the medical examiner looked at that and he found that it was front to back and minimally upward. And I'm not going to show the photo again, but you can look at it. You can see where it goes in and where it partially exits. It's front to back and just ever so slightly minimally upward. And it's on the left-hand side of her head. Right and upwards is the ejection pattern of the casing. And that's the ballistics expert's testimony. And you really have to listen to the medical expert and the ballistics expert together. It's what the cross-examination was all about, right? Like, this is your opinion, doctor, but would you defer to a ballistics expert who did muzzle-to-target distance testing? And he said yes. So in his experience, he's like looking at 200 dead bodies a year. Like, we can discredit that and say he's really busy, too busy to do a good job. Or we can say, man, he's really experienced and has seen a lot of suspicious deaths. And he has, to a high degree of medical certainty, have to classify that death as homicide, suicide, accident, natural causes, or undetermined. Undetermined is an option he can choose and does choose. And he said homicide. And he said homicide because this is unlikely to be self-inflicted because of the distance. Just like Detective Clark said, he's responded to hundreds of suicides and there is always a contact wound. And this wasn't a contact wound. And it wasn't a close contact either. It is 6 to 12 inches out. Now, the medical examiner might on his own put it a little further out than the ballistics expert. You know, up to two feet. He said, intermediate range, up to two feet. But he said, I would defer to the ballistics expert. And then the ballistics expert does her testing. And she says, yep, 6 to 12 inches. And when I heard that this might be self-inflicted, I tried to see if I could do that. And I couldn't. Like, she couldn't possibly hold the frame and pull the trigger in a comfortable way for it to be self-inflicted, to be front to back, slightly upward with her dominant hand or with her non-dominant hand. The only way you get that is maybe by thumbs. But like, why? Why would Soraya be doing that? That was appraisable. There's no evidence she ever touched that gun at all. The defendant is searching and thinking about that gun before they even go out. It is on his mind, not her mind. He is the one that was caught cheating. He is the one that cleaned up and grossly handled Soraya's body and dumped her in a storm drain and searched the woods with her mom, pretending that she was missing because he was afraid. Because he was afraid that he would get caught. Not because he was sad about some tragic accident that befell his wife. But because he acted on a drunken impulse when he was backed into a corner. Ladies and gentlemen, that is murder in the first degree. It is not an accident. It is not a series of poor choices and mistakes. It is intentional murder. It is extremely reckless murder, murder in the second degree. And it is two counts of tampering with evidence. Thank you for your time and attention and I recognize that this is a difficult case to work through as far as the facts and the evidence and the trauma of what happened. Objection. But the state trusts that you are all going to go back into that jury room and use your common sense and reason and think about what a reasonable person would do in this situation. Evaluate all of the testimony, medical testimony, the expert testimony, and most critically, the defendant's testimony and find that he's guilty of all the counts charged.