<\/p>\n
Daniel Gonzalez, center, is accused of shooting Donnell “Donnie” Sterling to death at Victoria Plaza Apartments in San Antonio in 2024. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Crystal Delarosa wipes away a tear while testifying during the murder trial of Daniel Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
A Bexar County jury on Thursday was deciding whether to convict Daniel Gonzalez of murder in the death of\u00a0Donnell “Donnie” Sterling, who was fatally shot while he sat in his downtown San Antonio apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jurors began deliberations at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the 399th District Court, in a trial that began Monday. If convicted, Gonzalez, 37, could be sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n
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Prosecutors allege that Gonzalez and his then-girlfriend Crystal\u00a0Delarosa were inside Sterling’s apartment when he was killed, sometime between Sept. 28-30, 2024, at the Victoria Plaza Apartments\u00a0near the Tower of the Americas. Sterling, 52, was shot in the head, and his body was not discovered until Oct. 4, 2024.<\/p>\n
San Antonio police were called to the complex, which is public housing primarily for elderly, low-income and disabled residents, after a maintenance worker found the body. Officers found Sterling on the floor in a pool of blood, his feet tangled in the legs of a chair.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors Jordan Brown and Brett Boises have not said what they believe the motive was in Sterling’s slaying.<\/p>\n
They say Gonzalez had the gun that was used to kill Sterling in his possession, and they say DNA evidence established that Gonzalez and Delarosa were in Sterling’s apartment.<\/p>\n
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Defense attorney Alfonso Cabanas has maintained that his client did not shoot Sterling. He told jurors the case was riddled with circumstantial evidence, inconsistent testimony from Delarosa\u00a0and a botched investigation by San Antonio police.<\/p>\n
Cabanas 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\u00a0Gonzalez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State District Judge Frank Castro asked both sides prior to closing arguments if they wanted the juror to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, but both sides declined and asked that the murder charge remain in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Delarosa, the state’s main witness, testified this week 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“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.”<\/p>\n
She said she “took off scared and ran out the door.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“I was scared, but I’m telling the truth today,” she told the jury through tears.<\/p>\n
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In his closing arguments for the prosecution on Thursday, 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We know there were three people in that room,” he told the jury. “Donnell Sterling was killed and left to rot.”<\/p>\n
He said Gonzalez “didn’t factor in that his girlfriend would testify against him.”<\/p>\n
“If you point a gun at someone and you pull the trigger,” he told the jury, “you’ve intentionally killed someone.”<\/p>\n
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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 their key witness lied numerous times.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Cabanas focused on\u00a0Delarosa’s testimony that\u00a0she, \u00a0Gonzalez and Sterling were smoking \u00a0marijuana together before the shooting happened.<\/p>\n
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“Not a single bit of marijuana was found in the apartment,” Cabanas told the jury, and he said the\u00a0medical examiner’s report did not indicate the presence of marijuana in Sterling’s body.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Delarosa “will tell you believe her now,” Cabanas said. “That is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Gonzalez, center, is accused of shooting Donnell “Donnie” Sterling to death at Victoria Plaza Apartments in San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-418457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}