Trial begins in murder of Camden boy

After 12-year-old Pedro Molina was gunned down over a cheap radio, his mother said, she looked out her window and saw the boy's shooter.

But was that man Jessie Sepulveda?

"He was reloading his gun under the light pole," said Molina's mother, Olga Rodriguez, gesturing toward Sepulveda, whose trial opened yesterday in Superior Court in Camden.

Molina's death, in October 2004, galvanized Camden at a time of rising crime, sparking a protest march and the kind of community soul-searching that takes place whenever an innocent dies violently.

Yet no one came forward with information for nearly a month until, finally, police got the tip that led to Sepulveda and another man, David Gomez.

Sepulveda's trial began with Rodriguez taking the stand and prosecutor Greg Smith showing her a picture of her son, taken after his death.

"Oh, God," she gasped, crying.

Later, under cross-examination from Sepulveda's attorney, Jaime Kaigh, Rodriguez said she saw the defendant reloading his gun. The unexpected statement led Kaigh to ask for a mistrial because Rodriguez had never before reported seeing Sepulveda that night.

The judge did not grant the mistrial, and Rodriguez later added that she did not see the gunman's face. He was a bald man, like Sepulveda, and he was wearing a black shirt, she said.

Smith, who called the shooting "brutal, senseless," said Sepulveda and three other men were walking past Molina's East Camden house around 2 a.m.

Sepulveda, he said, was high on the drug ecstasy.

David Gomez took the radio from Molina, who was sitting on his front-porch steps, and Sepulveda fired 10 times, striking Molina twice, Smith said.

Gomez pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and got a seven-year sentence. The two men with Gomez and Sepulveda that night were not charged.

One of those men, Johnathan Cintron, testified yesterday that he had known Sepulveda for a couple of weeks and that they had been selling drugs that day.

They went out that morning to settle a corner dispute. Cintron said Sepulveda had taken ecstasy, and had been drinking and smoking marijuana.

After the shooting, Cintron recalled, "he told us, if we said anything, he'd kill us."

No one said anything for nearly a month until Cintron, then a juvenile, was arrested for allegedly selling drugs and held on a previous burglary warrant.

He then spoke to homicide detectives.

Smith warned the jurors in his opening statement that his case relied on the testimony of unsavory witnesses.

"These are not the type of people who act out of civic duty," he said. But, he added, "this is not a whodunit."

Kaigh cautioned the jurors against believing those witnesses, including Gomez, who would testify.

"This is a case where . . . the prosecutor's office made a deal with the wrong person," he said. "It's during the [cross-examination] of these witnesses that the truth will start to filter through the quagmire of the case."

Sepulveda initially was facing the death penalty if convicted, but the state Legislature abolished capital punishment last year.

Kaigh also pointed out that, in a police report taken the night of the murder, Rodriguez said that the shooter was an African American.

In a transcript of a 911 call made that night, Rodriguez's daughter also said that her mother thought the shooter was African American, Kaigh said.

Rodriguez said yesterday that she never thought the shooter was a black man. Instead, she said the shooter was dressed in a black shirt. She was such an emotional wreck that night, she said, her mind blanked out.

"I was asked so many questions, it's difficult to keep hold of who I spoke to and what I told them," she said.