The way prosecutors tell it, Marvin Palencia premeditated the murder of 36-year-old Jacobo Vazquez after learning that his wife and Vazquez were having an affair. But Palencia’s defense attorneys say their client acted in self-defense when he shot Vazquez on November 11, 2010.
Jurors heard these arguments Wednesday morning.
Palencia, 35, is charged with first-degree murder, evidence tampering, and related weapons offenses in connection with Vazquez’s death.
Vazquez’s body was found in a cardboard box wrapped with duct tape on the side of westbound I-70 in Maryland on November 16, 2010, five days after he went missing. Prosecutors allege Palencia shot Vazquez twice in the laundry room of a building in the 100 block of Constitution Avenue Northwest, a building where they both worked.
Palencia’s defense attorney Gabriel Diaz told jurors that Palencia acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Vazquez.
“Vazquez came at him with a knife, so Mr. Palencia shoots [him] in self-defense,” Diaz said. “This was not a plan masterminded by Mr. Palencia; his instincts of self-preservation took over. He had to act to defend himself, or that might have been Jacobo Vazquez sitting in that chair with us today.”
Prosecutors said that Palencia and his wife separated in the summer of 2010, and in October of that year, Palencia’s wife moved into an apartment sharing a lease with Vazquez. Tensions soon escalated when Vazquez began telling co-workers about his affair with Palencia’s wife.
“[Palencia] plotted, he planned and he schemed for days, weeks, the murder of his friend,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Flynn told the jury. “Mr. Palencia’s actions were the definition of premeditation.”
Karla Villacorta, a supervisor from the Red Coat cleaning company where the men worked, testified Wednesday that Palencia would confide in her about the relationship between his wife and Vazquez.
“[Palencia] was suspicious,” Villacorta said. “When he found out about [Vazquez], he said he wanted to do something crazy.”
Villacorta also told the court that after Vazquez went missing she found traces of blood in the building’s laundry and engineer storage rooms, two places prosecutors argue were accessible to a short list of employees that include Palencia.
“As an engineer he had access to both rooms where blood was found, the blood of Vazquez,” Flynn said. “[Palencia] shot him twice and then tried to cover it up.”
The trial will resume Thursday in Judge John Ramsey Johnson’s courtroom.
