Trial in 2020 Coronado Park killing handed to jurors

Jeremy Garcia drove his pickup into an Albuquerque park and fatally struck a man in 2020 but did so as he attempted to flee from people chasing his vehicle, a defense attorney told jurors in closing arguments Friday.

Prosecutors responded that bystanders ran after the truck after they witnessed Garcia intentionally strike 37-year-old Carlos Moody following an angry confrontation between the two men at Coronado Park.

“Why are they chasing him? Probably because they were trying to get his plates,” Assistant District Attorney Dana Beyal told jurors. “They had just witnessed a murder.”

Garcia, 33, faces a charge of first-degree murder in Moody’s killing and a second charge of aggravated assault for allegedly attempting to run over Moody’s mother, who was living with her son at Coronado Park on the day of his death, June 8, 2020.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations on Monday in 2nd Judicial District Court. Judge Britt Baca-Miller presided in the five-day trial.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Boone told jurors in closing arguments that Garcia illegally and recklessly drove his truck into Coronado Park in search of Moody.

“Nobody can say it is reasonable to drive in a park,” Boone told jurors. “He’s looking for Carlos. He hops the curb.” A security video from a nearby business showed the pickup take a circuitous route to the west end of the park, where Garcia allegedly exited the truck and confronted Moody.

Boone again showed jurors the grainy security video Friday showing Garcia’s pickup enter Coronado Park, remain there for several minutes, then careen out of the park with several people chasing the vehicle on foot. The fatal collision itself is largely concealed by trees.

“This is a person who deliberately went to a park and murdered somebody,” Boone said of Garcia. “There has been no evidence presented in this case that (Garcia) was provoked in any way.”

At the time of Moody’s death, Coronado Park at Third and Interstate 40 was the home of the city’s most visible sanctioned homeless encampment. City officials closed the park in August 2022, displacing an estimated 120 people camped there. The park today is surrounded by chain-link fencing and remains closed.

Garcia’s attorney responded Friday that the video raises questions about what happened in the park that prosecutors failed to answer during the trial.

Although the video shows many people in the park that day, the only eyewitness testimony offered by prosecutors was that of Moody’s mother, Bernadette Barela, who has a “vested interest” in Garcia’s conviction, defense attorney John McCall told jurors.

“We don’t have a lot of eyewitness testimony of the events,” McCall said in his closing arguments. He also argued that Barela’s testimony was unreliable because she admitted drinking beer the morning of her son’s death.

Barela testified on Tuesday that her son pushed her out of the way of Garcia’s truck, preventing her from being struck by the vehicle. Garcia is charged with aggravated assault for his alleged attack on Barela.

Barela testified that she and her son were homeless and living at Coronado Park at the time.

“She was homeless and so was her son,” Boone told jurors Friday. “That doesn’t change the value of his life in any way.”