AA MEMBER ERIC ALLEN EARLE ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF KARLA BRADA

TRIAL GETS UNDER WAY IN 3 YEAR OLD MURDER TRIAL

Jim Holt September 8th 2014

SAN FERNANDO — The man accused of killing his girlfriend three years ago inside the Saugus condo they shared was described in San Fernando Superior Court Monday as charming when sober but abusive and belligerent when drunk.

Opening statements were made Monday in the long-anticipated murder trial of Eric Allen Earle, accused of killing Karla Brada. She died in the couple’s home between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Sept. 1, 2011. NA Daytona Meetings Holly Hill Sunrise Park Complaints.

Earle, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a light blue shirt, was wheeled into the courtroom in a pink wheelchair in front of more than a dozen of Brada’s family and friends attending the first day of the trial.

Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson told members of the jury she would call to the stand forensic experts to describe how Brada was killed by asphyxiation but would also call Earle’s ex-wife to talk about the abuse she suffered from Earle.

“She will tell you how he is a person who is charming when he’s sober, but as someone aggressive and completely different when drunk,” she told the jury.

Earle’s ex-wife will testify, she said, that Earle tried to strangle her and suffocate her with a pillow

“She will tell you that his response to this was that pillows won’t leave bruises,” Abramson said. AA Daytona Beach Meeting schedule Holly Hill Controversy Continues.

Earle’s defense lawyer, David Arredondo, argued, however, that “there will come a point where you will disagree with the experts.” He told jurors they must sift through that testimony.

“Eric Earle did not kill Karla Brada,” he told them.

He told jurors that much of the prosecution’s case depends on expert testimony.

He said methadone can also cause asphyxiation and that methadone was found in Brada’s body at the time of her death.

“You need to rely on common sense,” he said, painting a picture of Brada and Earle as a couple in love, engaged to be married but who shared a lifestyle of bad choices, each struggling with addiction.

Abramson told jurors that Brada and Earle met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and that she found him charming.

“It’s that charm that attracted her to Earle,” he said.

Brada friend Mayra Aguilar told the court that Earle controlled Brada’s life shortly after the two had met.

“I would see her every day,” she said on the witness stand, describing Brada as outgoing and very happy. “Either she would come over to my house or I would visit her.”

Brada changed dramatically when she met Earle, she said.

“I phoned her many times, but you could hear him in the background and he would answer all the questions I asked her,” Aguilar said.

She recalled receiving a phone call from Brada less than a month prior to her death.

“She called me that morning when she was going to bail him out of jail,” Aguilar said. “She said, ‘I’m going to pick up Eric. He almost killed me last night.’

“I told her, ‘Don’t go.’”

http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/127574/

16 thoughts on “AA MEMBER ERIC ALLEN EARLE ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF KARLA BRADA

  1. UPDATE: Closing arguments begin in Karla Brada murder case

    Posted: September 17, 2014

    By Jim Holt
    Signal Senior Staff Writer

    SAN FERNANDO — Lawyers presented closing arguments today in the trial of Eric Earle, who stands accused of murder in the death three years ago of his girlfriend, Karla Brada.

    Shortly before noon Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson told jurors: “The defendant has been finding a way to blame everyone but himself.

    “He grew up in an alcoholic family. The police were always around. He’s had an addiction problem. He’s had an anger management problem.

    “But today is the day he has to be held responsible,” she said as the San Fernando Superior Court trial drew to a close.

    “Enough is enough,” she said in her closing argument. “He is done blaming his parents. He is done blaming drinking, blaming his (ex-)wife, blaming his deceased girlfriend, blaming law enforcement.

    “For everyone out there who has been verbally or physically assaulted, it is time for accountability,” she said.

    “Tell him that he is responsible for the death of Karla Brada,” she said in closing. “Tell him that by rendering a verdict of guilty of first-degree, pre-meditated murder.”

    Before the jury broke for lunch, defense lawyer David Arredonno presented his closing arguments as well, asking jurors to use their common sense and to look at just the facts.

    “Eighty percent of this case has to do with history,” he told them.

    “Do what you promised to do,” he said. “Judge on the facts of the case.”

    Arredonno asked them to focus on the night of Aug. 31, 2011.

    Brada was found dead on the couple’s bed inside rhe Saugus condo they shared on the morning of Sept. 1, 2011.

    “This didn’t occur in 1995. It didn’t occur with his mother. Focus on what happened that day and night,” the defense attorney said, apparently referring to testimony the prosecutor elicited from Earle about previous arrests.

    Jholt@signalscv.com
    661-287-5527
    On Twitter @jamesarthurholt

  2. Prosecutor grills defendant in Saugus murder case

    Posted: September 16, 2014
    By Jim Holt
    Signal Senior Staff Writer

    Prosecutor grills defendant in Saugus murder case
    Eric Earle and Karla Brada

    SAN FERNANDO — Eric Earle, who stands accused of killing his girlfriend Karla Brada, was asked why his testimony differs sharply from that provided by sheriff’s deputies, neighbors, medical experts and Brada’s friends during his murder trial Tuesday.

    Earle, who testified in his own defense Monday and described how Brada suffered injures during a fall down stairs at the couple’s condo in 2011, was grilled Tuesday by Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson on cross examination.

    Brada was found dead on Sept. 1, 2011, inside the condo the couple shared.

    Abramson arranged a panorama of five poster-sized photographs in front of Earle, each depicting the bruises found on Brada’s body.

    “Are you telling us that these bruises are all from her falling down stairs?” she asked Earle as he sat in a wheelchair near the witness stand in the San Fernando Superior Courthouse.

    “Every one of these injuries are from the fall?” she asked him again.

    “As far as I know, yes,” he said.

    Abramson asked Earle specifically about injuries found inside Brada’s mouth, bruises on both arms and her bruised eye. She also asked him about the expert testimony of medical examiners listing her cause of death as asphyxia.

    “Despite expert opinions saying Karla Brada died of asphyxia and not from a drug overdose, you’re telling us that despite that testimony Karla Brada fell down the stairs,” she asked.

    Earle replied: “She fell down the stairs, I picked her up, brought her to bed. I woke up and she was dead.”

    The prosecutor also asked Earle why he thought the sheriff’s deputies who arrested him were lying when they testified Earle was abusive and why he thought his neighbor would lie about hearing him screaming the night Brada died.

    Earle said he did not know.

    Abramson asked Earle if he thought the deputies, neighbors and medical experts had a grudge against him in offering testimony that contradicted his own.

    Then she leapt to Earle’s past.

    “Do you remember hitting your mother?” she asked him.

    Earle replied: “I do not recall.”

    Abramson reminded him that he was convicted of that assault in 2001.

    “I did it,” he said.

    “Then, in 2007, you hit her in the face with a phone,” she said. To that Earle replied: “I was drunk. I did it.”

    Abramson also asked Earle about the testimony offered by his ex-wife that he placed a pillow over her face and tried to suffocate her.

    “Do you recall her testimony?” she asked. “That you sat on her and put a pillow on her face so that she couldn’t breathe?”

    Earle responded yes.

    “Do you recall her saying you told her pillows don’t leave bruises?” Abramson asked. He said yes.

    “That you strangled her by throwing her against the wall in front of your children. And that you threatened to kill her and her kids.”

    Earle said: “I don’t recall that.”

    “You called her a bitch, a c— and a piece of s—,” she said.

    Earle replied: “A bunch of times.”

    The trial is expected to wrap up this week.

    jholt@signalscv.com
    661-287-5527
    on Twitter @jamesarthurholt

    http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/127838/

    • Just to clarify, this was not just a condo the 2 shared, it was actually owned by Karla. He was just a freeloading creep.

      Damn, convicted of hitting his own mother and hitting her later? I read his Dad got a restraining order against his own son. I think he killed Karla Brada, no doubt in my mind. Hopefully being an AA member will not help out now even though it enabled him for decades being mandated by the courts numerous times over the course of his criminal career.

  3. Earle testifies Brada injured in fall down stairs
    Defendant takes stand in second week of murder trial

    Posted: September 15, 2014
    By Jim Holt

    SAN FERNANDO — Eric Earle, who stands accused of killing his girlfriend Karla Brada, took the witness stand in his own defense Monday, telling jurors Brada injured herself when she fell down stairs at their Saugus condo.

    Providing testimony from the same pink wheelchair he’s appeared in since his murder trial began last week at San Fernando Superior Court, Earle described the horror of waking up to find his girlfriend dead on Sept. 1, 2011.

    “I heard some fumbling around in the spare room,” he said. “Then I heard her tumble down the stairs.”

    Earle told jurors he bought a bottle of vodka at a convenience store on the evening of Aug. 31, 2011, and drank two glasses with orange juice as he watched TV in bed.

    He said the noise of Brada’s fall woke him from his sleep.

    “She screamed and that’s what got me up.

    “I found her at the bottom of the stairs,” he said. “First, I looked in the spare room, then I went running down the stairs. I looked down the stairs and that’s where she was.

    “She was hunched over a basket … her stomach was on top of the basket,” he said. “I picked her up. She was crying. Her mouth was bleeding.

    “I didn’t notice her mouth was bleeding until I got her up and into the kitchen,” Earle said. “I brought her over to the kitchen sink to rinse her mouth out. She spit blood into the sink.”

    Earle said he asked Brada if she wanted to go to the hospital.

    “I told her, ‘I’m just going to call 911,’ and she said, ‘No, don’t,’” he testified, adding that he and Brada went to sleep in their bed.

    Earle said he found her dead the next morning.

    “I didn’t notice it right away,” he said. “I got up. I went to the bathroom. I went downstairs. … I started to make coffee and then I climbed back into bed and I went to wake her up.”

    At that point in his testimony, Earle’s voice faltered.

    “That’s when I noticed her, that’s when I started screaming. I flung the blankets off her. I tried to get her up,” he said, describing Brada as “dead, stiff, cold.”

    “I started crying. It seemed like a nightmare,” he said.

    Earle said he phoned 911 and, immediately after that, phoned Brada’s parents.

    “I called her mom and dad and said, ‘You need to come here immediately,’” he said.

    Brada was found dead on the bed in the couple’s condo on Sept. 1, 2011. A medical examiner ruled the cause of death to be asphyxia.

    jholt@signalscv.com
    661-287-5527
    on Twitter @jamesarthurholt

    http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/127807/

  4. Deputy M.E. says drugs didn’t kill Karla Brada

    Testimony comes during third day of murder trial for boyfriend

    Posted: September 11, 2014
    By Hector Gonzalez
    Signal Staff Writer

    SAN FERNANDO – Four different drugs, including Methadone and methamphetamine, were in the blood and urine of a 34-year-old Saugus woman at the time of her death, a county forensic expert testified Thursday at the trial of a 42-year-old man charged with her murder.

    But none of the drugs, which also included traces of marijuana and an antidepressant, directly caused the death of Karla Brada, said Dr. Pedro Ortiz, a deputy medical examiner with the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, who performed the autopsy on Brada.

    In the third day of trial for Eric Allen Earle, 42, who is charged with murdering Brada, Ortiz told jurors he ordered toxicology tests on blood and urine samples he took from Brada’s body after hearing from sheriff’s investigators that Brada may have been drinking and taking drugs before her death.

    Brada was found dead on Sept. 1, 2011, in the Saugus home she shared with Earle, who was arrested the same day. Deputies released him a few days later, saying they needed additional evidence to present the case to the district attorney.

    He was re-arrested in Lomita in January 2012 and was held to stand trial at a May 2013 preliminary hearing.

    On Thursday Earle, who was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair wearing a blue button-down shirt and black horn-rimmed glasses, listened intently as Ortiz detailed his autopsy findings.

    Using autopsy photos, Ortiz — who also testified at the May preliminary hearing — pointed out a number of abrasions and contusions he found on Brada’s body during the autopsy.

    He said he found numerous injuries on Brada’s arms, hands and legs, along with evidence of asphyxiation caused by “compression to the neck and mouth” of the victim.

    Ortiz concluded that the injuries to Brada’s arms, hands and legs were caused prior to her death. He also placed the time or her death between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Sept. 1.

    Blood and urine tests found evidence that Brada had ingested Methadone, an opiate used to treat heroin addiction, marijuana. methamphetamine, and an anti-depressant medication, but not alcohol, Ortiz testified.

    Brada had “a significant amount” of Methadone in her bloodstream, at levels considered “toxic, but not lethal,” Ortiz testified.

    Asked by Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson whether the Methadone was a contributing factor in Brada’s death, Ortiz said it was a “remote factor.”

    “What was your conclusion as to the manner of Miss Brada’s death?” Abramson asked Ortiz.

    “Homicide,” Ortiz answered.

    In his cross-examination, Earle’s defense lawyer, David Arredondo, pressed Ortiz about his testimony that cuts the examiner found inside Brada’s mouth were caused by someone pressing down on her mouth.

    “Those same abrasions could have been caused by anything else, including a fall?” he asked Ortiz.

    “Yes,” Ortiz testified.

    Trial resumes Friday.

    http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/127668/

  5. Pink is the colour of breadt cancer support. This is a political statement and should not be allowed, it could cause a mistrial.

    • I think it is an obvious way to manipulate the jury to make them think he cares about women issues. This is really in bad taste.

  6. Murder Trial Begins For Saugus Man Accused Of Killing Girlfriend
    Mon, 09/08/2014 – | Perry Smith

    Court
    On Aug. 5, 2011, Karla Brada bailed her fiance, Eric Earle, out of jail.
    Don’t miss a thing. Get breaking Santa Clarita news alerts delivered right to your inbox.

    Less than a month later, she was found dead in the home the couple shared, asphyxiated and covered in bruises.

    Eight men and four women began to hear testimony Monday in the murder trial of Eric Allen Earle, 43, who’s accused of killing Karla Brada.A picture of Karla Brada, which was shown in court Monday

    Related:Saugus Man Pleads Not Guilty To Girlfriend’s Murder
    In the opening statements, Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson described Earle as an abusive, controlling boyfriend who beat his girlfriend in an argument ending with Brada’s death Sept. 1, 2011.

    Earle’s attorney, David Arredondo, said the pair engaged in their “bad conduct” — methadone, amphetamines and alcohol were found in Brada’s system at the time of her death — and Brada’s death was caused by a lethal amount of methadone in her system.

    Abramson opened with a picture of Brada, noting the victim would have turned 35 on Sept. 3, the day before jurors were to get their notice for service.

    In early 2011, Brada and Earle met in an alcoholics anonymous meeting where both were struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. Within a few months, the two were living together in Brada’s two-bedroom condo in Saugus.

    Related: Saugus Man Ordered To Stand Trial For Girlfriend’s Death
    The relationship quickly turned violent, Abramson contended, explaining in her opening remarks how Earle allegedly isolated Brada from her friends, while manipulating her and physically abusing her.

    Arredondo declined to say whether Earle would testify on his own behalf during the trial.

    He said his client had no reason to kill Brada and that he loved her, Arredondo said.

    “Much of the case here will depend upon expert testimony,” Arredondo said, but adding if the justice system relied on experts alone, there would be no need for the jury.

    “The conclusion here is death by asphyxiation,” Arredondo said. “The problem here is that, there’s also methadone.”

    Abramson also said she planned to introduce evidence that Earle assaulted his ex-wife and then bragged about choking her with a pillow so there wouldn’t be any bruises.

    The trial is expected to last about two weeks, according to the court’s schedule. Testimony will continue Tuesday.

    The criminal complaint against Earle alleges murder, and notes a prior conviction for felony evasion of arrest.

    For Brada’s mother, Jaroslava Mendez, who wore black dog tags with her daughter’s picture painted on them, and a purple wrist band with “RIP Karla Brada” on it, today’s trial was something she’d been waiting for several years.

    “It’s been horrible, we haven’t lived (since the murder),” she said, adding the death of her daughter has changed everything.

    The death has also sparked a lawsuit by Mendez and her family against Santa Clarita Alcoholics Anonymous, who alleged the organization helped conceal Earle’s violent past, according to a Courthouse News report.

    Earle is being held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in lieu of $1 million bail.

    http://hometownstation.com/santa-clarita-news/crime/court/murder-trial-begins-saugus-man-accused-killing-girlfriend-43625

    • I really hope Karla’s parents win their case against AA. Alcoholics Anonymous is a secret society by it’s very name and nature. At the beginning of each meeting they read the Anonymity statement which makes very clear that you are supposed to conceal information about the individuals who are in the meetings.

      This might have been appropriate at the time when AA was new and people were basically invited to the rooms, but now that criminals are sentenced to AA, the people who sit with them have a right to know the danger that the courts have put them in.

      Librarian

  7. Friend says he urged victim to leave abuser

    September 9th 2014 Jim Holt

    A friend of both accused killer Eric Earle and the woman he’s charged with murdering, Karla Brada, tried in vain the night she died to separate the couple and to get Brada out of the condo they shared, he testified Tuesday.

    John Dos Santos, a recovering drug addict, told a San Fernando Superior Court jury Tuesday that he phoned Brada several times on the last night the woman was alive.

    On the evening of Aug. 31, 2011, about 12 hours before Brada was found dead inside her Saugus condo, Earle phoned Dos Santos upset and drunk, Dos Santos said.

    “He was upset because he thought I was discussing his case,” he said, referring a case of domestic assault three weeks earlier which landed Earle in jail and left Brada bruised and cut.

    “He called me a f—– and a piece of s— and said he would kick my ass,” Dos Santos said, adding that he heard Brada in the background while on the phone with Earle.

    Deputy District Attorney Elena Abramson asked Dos Santos: “Did you hear her say, ‘Johnny, Johnny, he’s drunk’?”

    Dos Santos said he did.

    “I told them, ‘One of you guys has to leave right now or it’s going to be all bad,” he said.

    When Abramson asked him why he said that, Dos Santos said he recalled an incident in early August 2011 in which Brada showed up badly bruised and cut from an attack by Earle.

    “You don’t get a cut like that from a slap,” he told the court. “That’s done by a closed hand.”

    When Dos Santos advised the couple to part ways at 6 p.m. Aug. 31, he heard Brada in a “very calm tone” on the phone tell Earle to leave.

    “She said, ‘Please, Eric, go,’” he said. “She wasn’t yelling. She just said, ‘Would you please leave.’ I heard punches and slaps and the phone went dead.”

    Abramson asked him: “Did you hear Earle say, ‘F— you, b––-,’ before the phone went dead?”

    Dos Santos said “yes,” adding that he called Brada back several times on both Earle’s cellphone and her cellphone without success.

    On cross examination, Earle’s defense lawyer, David Arredondo, asked Dos Santos why he didn’t call the police.

    “The lifestyle Eric and I live, we don’t call the police … we handle our own,” he said.

    Earle and Dos Santos met in 2011 at Eden Ministries, a Christian 12-step residential program in Canyon Country that helps people overcome substance abuse. They received treatment for drug addiction there, Dos Santos said.

    At one point in Tuesday’s testimony, Abramson asked Dos Santos to describe Earle and asked him if he had ever seen Earle in a wheelchair.

    Since the murder trial began Monday, Earle has been wheeled into the courtroom in a pink wheelchair.

    Dos Santos said he had never seen Earle in a wheelchair and described him as “6-foot-2 and 200-something pounds.”

    It was not revealed in court why Earle was in a wheelchair.

    jholt@signalscv.com
    661-287-5527

    http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/127605/

    • ‘On cross examination, Earle’s defense lawyer, David Arredondo, asked Dos Santos why he didn’t call the police. “The lifestyle Eric and I live, we don’t call the police … we handle our own,” he said.’

      THIS SATEMENT FROM DOS SANTOS ALONE REFLECTS THE MINDSET OF HOW STEPPERS OPERATE, EVEN IN THE “ROOMS.”

      Any descent person, would have called the police KNOWING that their friend was in danger for her life. How very very sad to be Senora and Senor Brada to have to sit and listen to that testimony. Ms. Karlar’s death could have been prevented.

      “May the Paradaigmn shift continue”.

      My prayer is that this case and others of a similar nature set the precidence for all other cases invoving the horror stories like this one. If ALL of XA needs to be indicted, then so be it. They NEED SAFETY policies period!
      I’m not a hateful person, I only reserve my hate for evil people. This sad excuse for a man is evil and XA’s “wouldn’t turn him away, no matter how Grave his previous crimes were.”
      This is an indictment also on the court system. How can a judge not see the first time see that XA was not working for this monster?
      I’m venting at this point, but I instantly recall some of the abuses that I witnessed in the AA community where I live and I feel very, very sad.
      My heart and my prayers go out to the Brada family. Que lastima!

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