Daniel Gonzalez was found not guilty of shooting Donnell “Donnie” Sterling to death at Victoria Plaza Apartments in 2024.
Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News
After initially saying they couldn’t reach a verdict, a Bexar County jury on Friday found a San Antonio man not guilty in a 2024 fatal shooting.
The jurors deliberated for seven hours Thursday and for less than two hours on Friday morning before acquitting Daniel Gonzalez, 37, in the shooting death of Donnell “Donnie” Sterling, who was killed in his downtown San Antonio apartment.
Article continues below this ad
State District Judge Frank Castro had ordered the jurors to be sequestered overnight after they said Thursday evening that they were deadlocked.
After Castro announced the jury’s verdict, some of Gonzalez’s family members wept in the courtroom, while Sterling’s sister Bridgett Sterling shook her head.
Gonzalez’s attorney Alfonso Cabanas had maintained during this week’s trial that his client did not shoot Sterling. He told jurors the case against Gonzalez was riddled with circumstantial evidence and poor investigating by San Antonio police, and he attacked inconsistencies in the testimony of Crystal Delarosa, Gonzalez’s ex-girlfriend, who was the prosecution’s key witness.
Sterling, 52, was shot to death in his ninth-floor apartment at the Victoria Plaza Apartments, a public housing community for people who are elderly, disabled or are considered low-income. A neighbor last saw him Sept. 28, 2024, the same day his image was captured in surveillance video in the hallway of the apartments. He lived on the ninth floor.
Article continues below this ad
Prosecutors said they believe he was killed on Sept. 29 or Sept 30, 2024. His body was found by a maintenance worker on Oct. 4, 2024.
Gonzalez was arrested Oct. 3, the day before authorities found Sterling’s body. As Gonzalez was being arrested, a gun fell out of his waistband when he was being handcuffed, according to police body camera footage. That gun was the one used to kill Sterling, investigators said.
Sterling was shot in the head in his living room. He was found on the floor in a pool of blood with his feet tangled in the legs of a chair.
Prosecutors did not say what they believe the motive was in Sterling’s slaying.
Article continues below this ad
Cabanas, Gonzalez’s attorney, had alleged that Delorosa, who has a lengthy criminal record, lied in her testimony because prosecutors agreed not to charge her in exchange for testifying against Gonzalez.
DNA evidence presented during the trial showed that Gonzalez and Delarosa had been in Sterling’s apartment, but Cabanas told jurors that Gonzalez was not there when the shooting occurred.
Delarosa testified that she and Gonzalez were in Sterling’s apartment doing drugs with him. She said she sat down on Sterling’s couch to clip her toenails when she suddenly heard gunshots.
“I heard a gunshot, I looked up and I saw (Sterling) bleeding from the head,” Delarosa told the jury. “I don’t know if (Gonzalez) did it by accident, or why he did it.”
Article continues below this ad
She said she “took off scared and ran out the door.”
Delarosa admitted during cross-examination that she initially lied to police and denied knowing both men, saying she was afraid of what could happen to her.
“I was scared, but I’m telling the truth today,” she told the jury.
Prosecutor Jordan Brown told the jury that while there were inconsistencies in Delarosa’s testimony, she was able to describe the scene and how Sterling was shot because she was there when it happened.
Article continues below this ad
“We know there were three people in that room,” he told the jury. “Donnell Sterling was killed and left to rot.”
He said Gonzalez “didn’t factor in that his girlfriend would testify against him.”
“If you point a gun at someone and you pull the trigger,” he told the jury, “you’ve intentionally killed someone.”
Cabanas, Gonzalez’s attorney, told the jury in his closing argument that prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Gonzalez killed Sterling, in part because Delarosa lied numerous times.
Article continues below this ad
“We heard and saw that Mr. Sterling lost his life. His family has suffered a tragic loss,” he said. “But the state’s case depends on one witness, Crystal Delarosa, who admitted she lied in 2024, in 2025, and she even lied to you yesterday when she testified.”
Cabanas focused on Delarosa’s testimony that she, Gonzalez and Sterling were smoking marijuana together before the shooting happened.
“Not a single bit of marijuana was found in the apartment,” Cabanas told the jury, and he said the medical examiner’s report did not indicate the presence of marijuana in Sterling’s body.
Article continues below this ad
Delarosa “will tell you believe her now,” Cabanas said. “That is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated.