Opening arguments in the murder trial against Gustavo Olivo-Tellez is scheduled to begin this morning after a weeklong jury selection process.<\/p>\n
Prosecuting and defense attorneys settled on a 16-member jury Friday, which includes 12 primary and four alternate jurors. All 16 were sworn in Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The case against Olivo-Tellez charges him with killing his estranged wife, Blanca Salas-Jurado, in October 2016. It has had a long road to trial, after Olivo-Tellez first pleaded not guilty in June 2017.<\/p>\n
Ninth District Attorney Jeff Cheney maintains that Olivo-Tellez’s alleged accomplice and then-girlfriend, Michelle Castillo, assisted in the murder.<\/p>\n
Castillo pleaded guilty to accessory murder in the death of Salas-Jurado in December 2017, and Olivo-Tellez then pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity<\/a> in April 2018.<\/p>\n The insanity plea requires a mental-health evaluation, which was conducted last May by the Colorado Department of Behavioral Health, after which Olivo-Tellez re-entered a not-guilty plea and the case was set for trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n During a motions hearing in December, prosecutors and defense attorneys, led by Garth McCarty, agreed that what Olivo-Tellez said in the video-taped mental health evaluation will not be admissible during the trial, unless the defense attorneys bring it into evidence.<\/p>\n Prosecutors have transported Castillo to the Garfield County Jail from a Colorado corrections facility on the Front Range to be a witness for the trial. She is serving a 16-year sentence.<\/p>\n In an order on defense motions, 9th District Judge John Neiley ruled that prosecutors are allowed to make a case for Olivo-Tellez’s alleged motives based on circumstantial evidence, like when the firearm used to shoot Salas-Jurado was acquired and how.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys made the case that simply purchasing a weapon was insufficient to determine motive and was therefore prejudicial under the Constitutional right to bear arms.<\/p>\n Prosecutors claim that after the shooting at Salas-Jurado’s apartment, Olivo-Tellez ditched the gun and ammunition in the Roaring Fork River and fled with Castillo, who also may have assisted in acquiring ammunition used in the shooting.<\/p>\n According to arresting documents, Castillo dropped off Olivo-Tellez’s son with family in Grand Junction, then rendezvoused with Olivo-Tellez before getting arrested at a Grand Junction hotel a day after the alleged murder.<\/p>\n At the December motions hearing, prosecutors agreed not to present evidence that the child was in the room, or in the apartment, at the time of the alleged shooting.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories For You<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n