Marmolejo Trial: Prosecution Trying To Place Defendant Near Where Body Found

An associate professor from Purdue University took the stand for the prosecution Friday morning in the murder trial of David Marmolejo.

Marmolejo has been charged with murder in the July 2009 death of his mother, Gloria Marmolejo.

Terrence P. O’Connor explained how cell phone signals work in relation to cell phone towers. He emphasized that there’s no way a cell phone could be at Gloria’s house in East El Paso and be picked up by a cell phone tower on the West Side.

Gloria’s body was found in the desert near Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Prosecutors used O’Connor’s testimony to drive home their assessment that David was near the area where Gloria’s body was found in the desert the night she disappeared.

A partial look at David’s cell phone records show Gloria called David in Northeast El Paso at 5:40 p.m. July 25, 2009, the day she disappeared.

A half hour later, records show David was on the East Side when he called Wilson in Northeast El Paso. There would be more than half a dozen other calls between the two of them later that night.

But it was a call at 1:37 a.m. the following morning that District Attorney Jaime Esparza focused on. Cell phone records show that call was traced to a cell phone tower in West El Paso, near the area where Gloria’s body was found in the desert of Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

David called his ex-girlfriend, Akasha Loo, in Hawaii at that time.

The next record shows a phone call from David to Wilson at 5:30 a.m. Phone records show both of the phones used in this call were traced to a cell phone tower in East El Paso.

O’Connor is being paid $4,000 by the prosecution for the report he prepared and for his testimony.