The wife of Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly was called Wednesday to testify for the prosecution as a high-stakes murder trial with far-reaching borderland implications continues.
Wanda Kelly, who has been married to the defendant for nearly 54 years, told a Santa Cruz County courtroom that he was armed with a rifle and carrying a backpack as he walked near the couple’s home on a 170-acre ranch near Kino Springs, outside Nogales. He said he saw two men walking. , Arizona, January 30, 2023.
The woman recalled hearing several gunshots outside and fearing the worst, describing how her husband walked out onto the patio with a rifle while on the phone with Border Patrol agents.
“When the shots stopped, I just stood there, scared to watch,” Kelly said. “I walked over to the window on the left. … I looked and he wasn’t lying on the ground. So I said, ‘Thank you, Lord.'”
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George Alan Kelly enters the courtroom wearing a bulletproof vest for a preliminary hearing at Nogales Justice Court on February 22, 2023 in Nogales, Arizona. (Mark Henle/Arizona Republic via Associated Press, Pool, File)
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Kelly shot and killed an “unarmed immigrant” identified as Mexican national Gabriel Cuen-Buittimea, but the defense argued that forensic evidence and an autopsy report showed that Mr. Buittimea was killed by Kelly’s gun. The debate is over whether it can be conclusively proven that he was murdered. Testimony revealed that the fatal bullet was not recovered from the scene where Mr Buitimare’s body was found.
Kelly’s defense has argued that he fired a warning shot into the air after spotting someone classified as a drug smuggler trespassing near the home he shares with his elderly wife. ing.
Law enforcement has testified that Kelly himself begged Border Patrol to respond that day, and that officers did arrive at the scene, search the area and then leave. Kelly called the Border Patrol’s farm liaison again later that night, and when they went to check on the horse, they discovered Bouytimea’s body on the property.
A key witness for the prosecution, a Honduran man who claims to have been with Buitimare when he was shot, also testified that he had brought drugs across the border in the past and that he had been deported several times. I admitted it. But the man said on the day of the shooting that he was not smuggling drugs.
Under cross-examination by Santa Cruz County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Kimberly Hanley on Wednesday, Mrs. Kelley said that in the hours before Mr. Buitimare’s body was found, she had been cleaning up breakfast, putting dishes in the washing machine and doing laundry. He explained about the “normal things” he had done that day. At their ranch.
Early that afternoon, Wanda Kelly recalled, her husband came in to eat lunch at the kitchen counter when Kelly suddenly yelled, “Shut up” and “I just heard a gunshot.” is. Mrs. Kelly then looked out her living room window and saw two men wearing camouflage clothing walking parallel to the residence, and “the one that stood out to me was a man carrying a large brown backpack.” and was carrying a rifle.”
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George Alan Kelly listens to the prosecution during opening arguments in Santa Cruz County Superior Court on Friday, March 22, 2024, in Nogales, Arizona. (Angela Gervasi/Nogales International, via AP)
“I’ve never seen them point a gun at anyone or anything of that nature, right?” Hanley said, using a marker board to write down what Mrs. Kelly said on stage. he asked. Wanda replied, “That’s right.”
Asked how far they were from their home, Mrs. Kelly admitted in her deposition that she had originally said it was “the length of a football field,” but added, “That’s a mistake, because I… “I haven’t been to a soccer field in 2018.” Over 30 years. ” After measuring her distance, she testified, she now knows that she was only about 100 feet from her home when she saw the two men that day.
Mrs. Kelly said she used her iPhone to call U.S. Border Patrol ranch liaison Jeremy Morsell. Mr. Morsell testified early in last week’s trial that he responded to several calls for help from Mr. Kelly that day.
George Alan Kelly leaves the Santa Cruz County Courthouse with defense attorney Kathy Lowthorpe on Friday, March 22, 2024 in Nogales, Arizona. (Angela Gervasi/Nogales International, Associated Press, Pool)
“Alan said, ‘Call Border Patrol.’ So I put my cell phone in my hip pocket and took it out, walked over to the fridge that had the Border Patrol number on it, dialed it in, and the phone dialed and rang. While I was there, I started walking to where Alan was,” she said. Kelly testified Wednesday about the first phone call.
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Mrs. Kelly said she handed her husband a phone inside near the patio door before he ran outside with a rifle. She was then standing in the living room, and although she couldn’t see out the window from her vantage point, she heard gunshots that sounded “very close,” she said.
“Did you believe that was Alan’s gunshot?” Hunley asked. Mrs. Kelly answered “yes,” and she explained that although she may have heard perhaps five or six loud gunshots ring out, it was “not a priority” for her to count accurately.
“I just stood there frozen,” she said. “I thought Alan was firing into the air. … That’s what he does when he knows an intruder is nearby. He fires into the air as a warning. “You’re close enough, go home.”
Santa Cruz County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Kim Hanley listens to a 911 call to the jury during the trial of George Alan Kelly in Santa Cruz County Superior Court on Friday, March 22, 2024 in Nogales, Arizona. . (Angela Gervasi/Nogales International, Associated Press, Pool)
Kelly’s case ignited a powder keg last year when the rancher was charged with first-degree premeditated murder and held for several weeks on $1 million cash bail.
GoFundMe launches fundraising campaign Kelly was released from custody while awaiting trial after the Christian crowdsourcing alternative GiveSendGo supported the campaign and a judge changed his bail from cash to surety. The most serious charge against Kelly was later downgraded to second-degree murder.
Earlier this year, Mr Kelly rejected an offer by prosecutors to reduce the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he agreed to plead guilty. The defense argued that prosecutors rushed to sentencing by charging Kelly with first-degree murder without conducting a thorough investigation, including forensics, ballistics, autopsy results, cell phone forensics, fingerprints and DNA. .
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Kelly’s attorney, Brenna Larkin, told the court that “testimony is bought and sold by drug traffickers in the same way that drugs and people are bought and sold.”
The jury trial in Santa Cruz County Superior Court begins March 22 and is expected to last up to a month, ending around April 19. Hearings are held four days a week, with Mondays closed.
