David Estrada Sanchez, 50, was found guilty of sexually abusing a young child during her pre-kindergarten years.
According to trial testimony, Destany Zuniga was staying in the home of Rachel and David Sanchez after school in 2007 and 2008. Zuniga was five years old at the time.
“He would come into the bedroom where I was watching TV,” Zuniga told the five-man, seven-woman jury.
She described, in detail, several acts of sexual abuse that the defendant committed.
Asked why she didn’t tell anyone about the abuse, she told prosecutors, “I was scared… I didn’t really know what was happening to me.”
The first time Zuniga told anyone about the abuse was years later when she was in junior high.
“I told my best friend,” she said; explaining that she told Torri Garcia but elicited from her a promise not to tell anyone. Garcia kept her secret until after an investigation began in 2018.
Bay City Police Department Lieutenant Chris Hadash was assigned to investigate the allegations in 2018.
Hadash told the jury that he arranged an interview and a sexual assault examination for Zuniga.
According to Hadash, Zuniga told her mother about the assaults in April of 2018 and it was immediately brought to the attention of law enforcement.
Hadash said he asked the defendant to come to the police department for an interview about the allegations.
The jury was permitted to watch the 30-minute recording of that interview. At the conclusion of 30 minutes, Sanchez terminated the interview after saying “I know where this is going.”
After testimony from Zuniga and her mother, prosecutors called Brittany Wisch Matthews as a witness.
Matthews was a forensic interviewer at the Children’s Advocacy Center in 2018, where she interviewed Zuniga, according to her testimony.
Questioned by First Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Deshotels, Matthews explained the interview process.
“Delayed outcries are not unusual,” she said, and happen in “most of my interviews.”
Asked why this is so, Matthews listed a number of reasons as “shame, embarrassment, family dynamics, lack of understanding, and fear of getting into trouble.”
Matthews testified about details of the interview and the outcry made by Zuniga.
The witness distinguished “script memory” from “episodic memory” to explain to the jury the difference between general and detailed descriptions of events.
In response to cross examination by defense attorney Laine Lindsey, Matthews told the jury that both types “are true memories… some are just more clearly remembered.”
Matthews disagreed with Lindsey that 5-year-old children cannot be reliable narrators of facts.
“Destany did not bring up fantasy,” said Matthews, “five year olds can be reliable.”
Leslie Kallus, a sexual assault nurse examiner, told the jury of her examination of Zuniga.
Pressed by both the prosecution and defense, Kallus explained that because of anatomical realities, “in 98% [of sexual assaults] there are no observable injuries.”
During the defense case, the defendant’s wife, Rachel, and his step-daughter, Monica Parks testified.
Neither said they observed any inappropriate acts by defendant.
Rachel Sanchez told the jury that during the years she babysat children in her home, the defendant “was never alone” with the children.
This statement seemed to conflict with the statement made by the defendant during the recorded interview and by testimony from Parks.
Prior to the guilty verdict, Deshotels explained simply that, if the jury believes the victim, the defendant is guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a young child.
Lindsey directed the jury to doubt which he believed was created by several Child Protective Services cases against Zuniga’s parents as well as allegations that the child had been sexually assaulted by deceased relative.
After final argument by District Attorney Steven Reis, the jury deliberated for more than seven hours before finding Sanchez guilty on Thursday evening before court adjourned for Easter weekend.
On request by prosecutors, the defendant’s bond was revoked and he was taken to jail to await the punishment phase of trial to begin on the following Tuesday.
On the following Tuesday, several friends and relatives of the defendant testified that they disagreed with the jury’s verdict and did not have concerns about leaving their own children in his care.
Asked whether the victim’s life was different because of the offense, her father Edward Zuniga said, “no one can erase this from their mind and live life like it never happened.”
Thirty minutes after hearing summations by the lawyers, the jury returned a verdict to 130th Judicial District Judge Denise Fortenberry.
The sentence of 30 years in prison, without parole, was entered by the judge before remanding Sanchez to the jail.
Sanchez will be 80 years of age upon release from prison.
