A state prosecutor said Thursday during closing arguments in the double-homicide trial against Jerry Active that witness testimony alone was enough to find Active guilty of a dozen crimes.
Assistant Attorney General Adam Alexander added the state had much more than just testimony, including a significant amount of physical evidence that proves 26-year-old Active killed two beloved grandparents and raped three victims.
The defense stuck to its general argument that Active is not responsible for the crimes. Attorney Chong Yim spent much of his argument attempting to cast doubt on the results of DNA tests and investigators' methods of collecting evidence.
Active was arrested in May 2013 and accused of murdering Touch Chea and Sorn Sreap in their Mountain View apartment. Police said Active also sexually assaulted a 2-year-old girl and a 90-year-old woman, as well as assaulted Von and Minesoreta Seng, who returned home from a movie date to find the bloody scene and Active in the shared apartment.
Assistant district attorney Gustaf Olson started by listing the 12 charges against Active. Those include first- and second-degree murder counts, rape, assault and burglary charges.
Olson said Active was guilty of first-degree murder; Active intended to kill Chea and Sreap, he said. The prosecutor stomped his foot on the courtroom floor while explaining the state's burden of proof, alluding to the state's argument that Active beat his victims to death with his feet.
And the rape victims did not give consent, Olson said. The 90-year-old would have been unable to do so as she suffered from dementia, he said.
"He didn't care. He was taking what he wanted and would kill whoever got in his way," Olson said.
The prosecutor said the identity of the assailant is a not an issue.
Witnesses testified Active was drinking in the same apartment building earlier in the day. A neighbor behind the building said she saw an Alaska Native man with tattoos -- Active has tattoos all over his body -- jump head-first into the apartment where the murders occurred. And the Sengs caught Active inside the apartment, Olson said.
There were multiple direct observations of Active, he said.
"No one said the real guy got away," Olson said.
The state also focused on Active's socks. Police arrested him clad in bloody socks about 400 feet from the murder scene.
Olson pointed out that the stitching of the socks' threads ran from heel to toe. He showed a picture of the apartment's kitchen -- bloody footprints marred the tile. A closer examination of one of the prints showed the imprint matched Olson's description.
But the socks were never tested for DNA. Neither were various articles of clothing, a bloody towel and the apartment's doorknobs, among other items.
Yim, the defense attorney, argued at length that the state should have done more during its investigation. He said the state feared it would have found evidence implicating someone else.
Expert witnesses, according to Yim, said not all the pieces of evidence were tested due to "time and money."
Active was not in the apartment where the murders occurred but in a nearby apartment on the building's second floor, Yim said; he dropped out of a window in that apartment around the time the Sengs found the bodies of the older couple.
Minesoreta Seng spotted and identified Active as the assailant outside the apartment, Yim said. That's when the Sengs and Active began to fight, he said.
"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Yim said.
And that's when DNA evidence found on Active was transferred from the Sengs, the defense attorney argued. The "secondary DNA transfer" is why crime lab results found the 2-year-old's DNA on Active, he said.
"The state was required to do more" with its investigation, Yim said. "Instead, they relied on circumstantial evidence and emotion."
Alexander said for jurors to accept the defense's version of events, they would have to believe all of the state's witnesses lied or misremembered events.
"You would have to accept the premise that Active is literally the world's unluckiest bystander," Alexander said.
Jurors were to be given instructions before deliberating Thursday afternoon.