George Gonzalez, comforts his wife, Rosa Gonzalez , Julia Rolon- Estrada's sister, as Jose Rolon, Rolon-Estrada's father, watches after the jury convicted Rolon-Estrada's killer Albert Estrada of second degree murder at the St. Lucie County Courthouse on Tuesday.

FORT PIERCE — A jury this morning convicted Albert Estrada on a lesser charge of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, Julia Rolon-Estrada, who was found buried in their back yard.

Estrada, 43, of Port St. Lucie, could have faced the death penalty if the jury convicted him of first-degree murder.

Jurors had deliberated for more than nine hours Monday and announced they had reached a verdict immediately after they reconvened this morning.

Rolon-Estrada’s father, Jose Rolon, and her sister Rosa Gonzalez, said they were devatated by the verdict.

“It sucks. I really don’t know how I feel about it right now,” Gonzalez said. “I think I’ll know more how I feel tomorrow.”

Estrada faces up to life in prison when CIrcuit Judge Dan Vaughn sentences him Wednesday.
(more…)

On what would have been her mother’s 43rd birthday, Candice Estrada spent the afternoon telling a jury how she unwittingly discovered what would become a piece of evidence in her father’s trial for her mother’s murder.

She said she was taking the last of her mother’s belongings from her parents’ Port St. Lucie home in December 2006 when she opened a cookbook, curious as to why the edges were shredded.

“When I opened it, there was a bullet there,” she said Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Albert Estrada’s first-degree murder trial this week said another bullet Estrada fired inside the house on July 26, 2006, hit Julia Rolon-Estrada and killed her.

Crime scene investigators never saw the cookbook during their investigation.

Assistant State Attorney Steve Gosnell asked Candice Estrada what she did when she found it.

“Well, I was kind of creeped out, so I just closed the book and put it back,” she said.

Albert Estrada could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.

Jurors on Tuesday also heard testimony from detectives who said Estrada stood at a back window two days after the alleged murder, his hands pressed to the glass while investigators looked at the bags of mulch stacked atop a shallow grave in the couple’s back yard where they found Rolon-Estrada the next day.

Among other evidence, prosecutors showed jurors a calendar inside the house. On July 26, the day investigators believe Estrada killed his wife, someone had drawn a sad face.

Jurors also heard a conversation between Estrada and Port St. Lucie police Detective Robert Fonteyn while investigators searched the couple’s home. Estrada told him his wife ran away after he rebuffed her desire to have more kids.

“I told her, ‘If we’re going to fight and you decide you’re going to leave, what am I going to do? Huh? Am I going to kill you? Then I’ll never have you,’ ” Estrada said.

FORT PIERCE — Testimony began today in the murder trial of Albert Estrada, the 43-year-old man accused of murdering his wife before burying her in their back yard and lying to police as they searched for her.

Assistant State Attorney Steve Gosnell in opening arguments this morning gave the 14-member jury a timeline of the events before and after Wednesday, July 26, 2006, when friends and co-workers last heard from Julia Rolon-Estrada.

Nancy Paxton, her supervisor at a doctor’s office where she worked, later testified that Rolon-Estrada had been upset that day, crying and talking about breaking up with her husband that afternoon.

Paxton said she overheard a phone conversation between the couple that afternoon when Rolon-Estrada put the call on speaker. She said Estrada gave a chilling response when his wife said she wasn’t coming back home.

“He basically said, ‘You are coming back home. If you don’t I’m going to kill you and I’m going to kill your whole family. I’m going to kill your sister, your mother and your father,’” Paxton said.
(more…)