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.’”
