SAN JOSE — Three adults charged with helping a teen after he allegedly shot and wounded three people at Westfield Valley Fair mall, sending crowds of Black Friday shoppers scrambling to safety and garnering national headlines, are headed toward trial after a preliminary hearing last month.
But while Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Brian Buckelew ordered the two men — including the alleged shooter’s older brother — and one woman to commence trial proceedings, he voiced serious reservations about the strength of the case.
“The defense was very effective in denting many of the arguments of the People,” Buckelew said at the conclusion of the Feb. 13 preliminary hearing.
He later added: “The case came in weaker than I thought — significantly weaker than I thought.”
At issue are prosecutors’ allegations that the teen suspect was accompanied by family members who ushered him away after he committed a cold-blooded gang shooting, versus a competing theory from defense attorneys, who cite video surveillance footage in arguing that the boy was actually defending his group from a man reaching for a gun.
Allana Nevaeh Murillo, 21, from San Jose, appears in court to answer for a charge of being an accessory in a Nov. 28, 2025 shooting at Westfield Valley Fair mall at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. The shooting injured three people, allegedly at the hands of a 17-year-old boy who has been charged with attempted murder. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
“Calling this a mass shooting preys on the fear around mass shootings,” said Cody Salfen, an attorney for defendant Allana Navaeh Murillo, referring to authorities’ characterization. “Law enforcement settled on a narrative early, and after that point the evidence was viewed through that lens. Evidence that supported the theory was emphasized, while evidence that contradicted it was overlooked or not meaningfully pursued.”
The District Attorney’s Office said in a pair of statements to this news organization that they are ready to argue their position at trial.
“Just as with any case, should this case proceed to a jury trial, the People intend to present the available admissible evidence to the jury for them to decide if the People proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the statement reads.
In a follow-up statement, the office said, “We will be making our arguments about the strength of our case in court and not in the press.”
While the portrayal of a different origin for the shooting has less bearing on the adults’ prosecution than the attempted murder charge against the teen, it is the main public window into the shooting case since the teen is in juvenile court, where information and proceedings are more tightly restricted. A juvenile court judge has yet to rule on a DA request to try the teen as an adult.
The widely known account of the Nov. 28 shooting, presented by San Jose police and prosecutors, starts with the then-17-year-old boy going to the mall on a busy shopping afternoon accompanied by his older brother, Christian Joel Duran, along with Murillo, who was pushing a stroller with the child she shares with Duran, and his uncle, Evan John Moniz.
They were in front of the Fresh Society store, on a crowded second-floor walkway near the Macy’s women’s store, when they encountered a group of presumed gang rivals, authorities said. A San Jose police affidavit states that a member of the second group was wearing a black-and-teal hat — with the teal blue color signaling a rival allegiance — and that both sides “were challenging each other visually.”
Soon after, the boy was seen pulling a handgun from his waistband and opening fire, wounding the man and also a woman and teen girl who were nearby. A mass evacuation ensued, with some shoppers making their way for the exits, while others huddled together in shops or found refuge with nearby residents.
Two days later, the group was arrested, and prosecutors charged the boy with attempted murder, and charged the 21-year-old Duran, 33-year-old Evan John Moniz, and 21-year-old Murillo as accessories to the shooting by allegedly helping him elude capture. All three are out of jail custody; their next scheduled court hearing is May 13.
Duran was later additionally charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor accusing him of possessing a stolen, un-serialized handgun two days before the shooting. That’s the weapon prosecutors say the teen suspect used in the Black Friday shooting, though the gun itself has not been recovered.
But at the preliminary hearing, defense attorneys presented video evidence and highlighted what they called gaps in the investigation that minimized the role of the primary shooting target, a self-admitted gang member from Santa Cruz, in spurring the violence. Their argument, which seems to have partially swayed the judge, cast doubt on the prevailing narrative, and instead characterized the shooting as a response to the gang rival reputedly reaching into a tan backpack for a gun.
Before the man could pull anything out of the backpack, the teen allegedly shot him through the chest — but miraculously did not seriously injure him — and pandemonium ensued with people fleeing in different directions. A trail of surveillance video after the shooting followed the backpack as a mall security employee picked it up and appeared to be trying to reunite the backpack with the victim, but at some point, it was set down, then seemingly stolen by an uninvolved man passing by, who loaded it into a stroller and headed outside to a second-floor parking lot.
Cameras captured the unidentified man bringing the backpack to a car and out of view while several companions joined him to examine the contents. That followed moments later by the sight of a woman in the group visibly jumping back upon seeing what was inside. The group quickly left the area, toting the backpack.
At the same spot where the group rummaged through the backpack, police reportedly recovered a pistol loaded with an extended magazine.
Defense attorneys say the expanded scope of events presented at the preliminary hearing drastically change the context for the criminal case. They contend that their clients were, like everyone else in the mall, fleeing for their safety, and in the case of Duran and Murillo, for the safety of their child.
Salfen and Duran attorney Will Brotherson both highlighted the wounded man’s inconsistent statements to investigators about the backpack, as well as an SJPD officer’s testimony saying the man’s recorded actions with the backpack before the shooting looked like “furtive” movements consistent with someone reaching for a firearm. They also pointed to the man’s three previous felony cases in the Santa Cruz area for being a felon in possession of a firearm, with his most recent conviction occurring about three weeks before the Black Friday incident.
“The public deserves to understand that the alleged victim’s own recorded interview contains multiple inconsistencies, shifting explanations, and unanswered questions about the backpack at the center of the incident,” Salfen said.
The attorneys also assert that their clients were convincing the boy to surrender to police when officers located and arrested them. Salfen said some of the evidence police cited to allege Murillo drove the teen away from the mall — cell phone pings that placed them in the same area after the shooting — were questionable at best, adding that the idea of her acting as an accessory belies the fact that she implicated the teen.
“The case against her relies on interpreting ambiguous statements and phone data as proof of intent while disregarding evidence that complicates or contradicts the prosecution’s theory — including the fact that Ms. Murillo voluntarily waived her Miranda rights and provided a thorough and detailed statement to law enforcement after her arrest, about what she perceived before, during, and after the shooting,” Salfen said.
Brotherson said the evidence revealed at the preliminary hearing are all the more reason not to jump to conclusions about the case.
“While I understand the high level of public interest in this case, I encourage the public to wait for all facts to emerge before rushing to judgment,” he said.
Judge Buckelew appeared to lend credence to that idea at the preliminary hearing.
“This is a really hard call with respect to Ms. Murillo and Mr. Moniz,” he said. “It’s really a close call.”