Riverhead Jury Deliberates Murder Case

According to Newsday jurors began deliberating the case against a 23-year-old man from Guatemala accused of killing a 29-year old woman, also from Guatemala, on Wednesday, May 28 in the Arthur M. Cromarty Courthouse in Riverhead.

The crux of the case hinges on a video-taped confession of the accused Guillermo Alvarado Ajcuc, but his lawyer, Eileen Powers says the tape is of little evidential importance as it contains nothing much more than the interviewing detectives trying repeatedly to ask Ajcuc, the accused, in Spanish, whether or not he killed Mirian Yohanna Garcia Mansilla. The accused’s first language is not Spanish but Kaqchikel—a Guatemalan dialect.

Kaqchikel was also the native language of the woman who was found strangled two years ago near a parking lot by El Sabor Latino, a bar where the two had been drinking before she was asked to leave after consuming excessive amounts of alcohol two years ago.

Ms. Powers, quoted in an article in The Riverhead News-Review  said that detectives were unaware Mr. Alvarado-Ajcuc spoke a different language, and noted in her opening statement that Spanish was used in the interrogation, during which her client allegedly confessed.

Jurors continue to deliberate inside the Arthur M. Cromarty Court House in Suffolk County Court Judge John Toomey Jr.’s courtroom in Riverhead until a verdict in the case is reached.