Shocking Verdict Dropped in Military Wife’s Murder Trial

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mr. Poor person, has the jury reached a verdict? Yes, sir. Could you please hand the verdict forms to Mr. the bailiff? [00:00:08] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:00:27] Speaker 1: Mr. Gillibrand, will you please rise? In the matter of the state of Alaska v. Zarius Hildebrand, we the jury find the defendant Zarius Hildebrand not guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in count one. We the jury find the defendant Zarius Hildebrand guilty of a lesser included offense of murder in the second degree as charged in count one. We the jury find the defendant Zarius Hildebrand guilty of murder in the second degree as charged in count two. We the jury find the defendant Zarius Hildebrand guilty of tampering with physical evidence as charged in count three. We the jury find the defendant Zarius Hildebrand guilty of tampering with physical evidence as charged in count four. Thank you. Does either party wish to have the jury pulled? [00:01:22] Speaker 2: No. [00:01:27] Speaker 3: No, Judge. [00:01:28] Speaker 1: All right. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for your service. This has been a long trial, a difficult trial in many ways. As I think I've noted before, you all were actively participating. I would keep an eye on you to make sure that everyone's still engaged. I know that this is a long process, a difficult process, and you all took it very seriously. We're active participants, and I appreciate that. I want to thank you on behalf of the court system and the state for your service. You are all excused at this point. Often the attorneys like an opportunity to chat with you if you're willing to stick around. You do not need to stick around. You're not obligated to do that at all. But if you want to, they may come down and chat with you if you're willing to stick around. I will come down and thank you again and ask for any feedback that you have for how we can make things work smoother for you. But again, you don't have to stick around for that. So you've all completed your service. You're free to discuss the case at this point. And thank you very much. I'm excused. Thank you. Please be seated. As the parties understand, sentencing is put out sometime for a pre-sentence report. I have two potential dates, October 20th at 2 p.m. or October 23rd at 10 a.m. October 20th at 2 p.m. or October 23rd at 10 a.m. And those dates, it doesn't matter that much at this point what date we pick. If it doesn't work for the parties when we get closer, just contact chambers and we can make sure that it's a date that works for everybody. Is there a preference between those two dates at this point? [00:03:22] Speaker 3: Yes, Judge. [00:03:24] Speaker 1: And what is that preference? [00:03:25] Speaker 3: I think that we will probably need some time for the sentencing. So I would prefer we block off a significant portion time of October 23rd. [00:03:43] Speaker 1: Let me take a look if I have anything at this point. I don't think I have a date certain trial at that point, but let me... [00:03:49] Speaker 2: The 23rd's of Friday. [00:03:50] Speaker 3: Yes. [00:03:55] Speaker ?: Right. [00:03:56] Speaker 1: So if we start at 10, does that work? And I can block off, what, four-hour chunk? Two hours? [00:04:03] Speaker 4: I don't know that four will be sufficient, Judge. I imagine there will be a lot of statements in this case. [00:04:14] Speaker 2: I don't think we need four hours, but I'll look for those four... [00:04:17] Speaker 1: I will block off the day. I always love desk time when I have a chance to do some work, and so if it, unless something, you know, today we'll start at 10 o'clock and we'll take as long as we need. Does that work? [00:04:29] Speaker 4: Yes, Judge. [00:04:29] Speaker 1: Okay. And again, if those dates end up not working for people as we get closer to it, just contact chambers and we'll work on picking a new date. Anything else today? Do either parties intend to go chat with the jurors? [00:04:48] Speaker 2: I always like to hear from them if anybody's stuck around. I think I'll see you. [00:04:55] Speaker 1: Mr. I couldn't hear you. Yes, Judge. Okay. All right. I'm going to run down there and thank them again, and then I'll get out of your way and you folks can come down and chat. Thank you, all. Off record. [00:05:11] Speaker 2: 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 six 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. And 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 lesser included murder in 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. 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 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 with 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 murder in the 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 murder in the first degree, not guilty 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 impedes. 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. human life. An extreme indifference means extreme recklessness. Again, instruction 29 defines knowingly and recklessly for you. And voluntary intoxication is not a defense to either of those mental estates. So you have to ask yourself, well, what does extreme indifference mean? And the law gives you some instruction on this. It's an 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 Willow Law 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 Willow Law 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 wasn't 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 1.18 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 1.34 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 a 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 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 her site. She also then goes through his Snapchat and finds these conversations with Cheyenne. And she's doing this about 10 minutes later between 221 and 222 and then all the way up to 224 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 224 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 218 and 224 a.m. and we know that from the records. Like that's when she's looked at them and sent them to herself. And we also know that the defendant deletes them at 1130 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. Like the neighbor 80 feet away knew knew that it was a gunshot in her bed. 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 a.m. 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 a.m. and his description for this he at first just didn't know and somewhere on direct examination he said he 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 8.32 a.m. and then at 9.19 a.m. he maps to the Castle Megastore again he's either thinking of a story or getting excited about what he's done at 10.44 a.m. 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 isn't 10 in the morning 1044 in the morning the next thing he knows that or the next thing he does that we know about is he goes to Fred Myers 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 barbershop 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 two 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 right 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 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 the odor and then cotton swabs just for his personal hygiene 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 Myers 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 11pm on 8-6 and 5am on 8-7 he travels over 2200 meters you can see the distance travel remember detective pattern knows his testimony that in her training and experience this was reported out in meters the biggest group here is from 11pm to midnight but he is moving all night long all the way up in its reverse chronological order right so it starts at 11pm here on the 6th all the way till 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 you know there's 3 feet in a meter roughly he travels about a 1.36 miles which makes sense when we know where the body is located the apartments right here the swan drain is 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 was that difficult he doesn't say it was emotionally difficult because it wasn't easy no it wasn't that's not a white 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 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 like regular he if you look at his searching he's searching the Mount Balby 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 with 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 etc and he gave her the thumbs up well her best friend isn't going to go away he asked 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 502 he just generically searches hospitals on his phone and then at 534 Marie makes the 911 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 speaker phone 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 person or 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 1044 but that's the story he's told and that's the story he's stuck with officer Zhang 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 Bancroft Park he's sending them to the side instead of straight up that access road and then at 744 Meredith Barney gets the call that no mother should ever get that her daughter is 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 gonna 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 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 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 in to 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 night the defendant meets with Detective Elby and Detective Lee at the Mockingbird residence outside and he wants information about 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 and 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 two 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 new sheets in the mattress topper there's presumptive flood 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 wifey and says I already told detective I'll be in 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 that 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 you can see those and you remember detective detective Chelsea 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 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 but that mop bucket sure is sold there and then if we can turn on the lights I do want to talk about this blue star residence 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 water 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 like she was moving 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 is 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 is 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 Dalen 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 gonna 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 for 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's 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 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 Soraya but I've prepared for the worst unfortunately please make sure that if Soraya is found rather it be dead or alive that we get buried next to each other please finally to Soraya 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 you've been telling this lies for days you 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 Soraya 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 in all the times you've talked to him since this has he ever said he missed Soraya no he is contemplating killing himself because of the weight 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 doesn't 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 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 Soraya 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 can't it's really hard to charge murder when you don't know for certain that the person's dead you need a body 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 [00:50:57] Speaker ?: we know [00:50:57] Speaker 2: that he's purchased a trash can at Lowe's and lo and behold A1 landscaping finds that trash can man just just steps away from the storm drain and that crime 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 10th detective Chakowski 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 to officer remember 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 divide 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 would 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 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 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 soraya'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 the clean up 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 the 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 Soraya'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 and never seen a suicide that wasn't a contact wound and a contact [00:57:09] Speaker 1: wound [00:57:09] Speaker 2: 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 stippling 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 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 residents 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 some prints 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 Sig Sawyer is 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 nagahide 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 right but certainly not closer and 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 and we talk about motive you have a jury instruction it's in your 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 an absence of motive may tend to establish innocence you may 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 Marie 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 I 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 or 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 an offense 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 saraya 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 he may 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 if it you know it's amazon prime day if he made a thousand dollars 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 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 [01:09:24] Speaker 3: objection [01:09:26] Speaker 2: no one covers up a suicide the defense is unreasonable no one covers up an accident they render aid and call the police guilty people cover up a crime 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 [01:10:10] Speaker 5: large think you have a good chance if you go to trial oh okay that's if I can be on the clock and tell a testimony and you know yeah I don't want to say work my magic but yeah I know what you mean make the jury yeah feel for you I know yeah I ladies and [01:10:47] Speaker 2: 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 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 charges thank you thank you [01:11:17] Speaker 1: council approach please [01:11:18] Speaker ?: thank you