A prosecutor on Tuesday promised to stroll a Clark County jury by means of what started as a deadly automotive crash investigation however investigators later discovered to be a focused drive-by taking pictures.
Branden Lombardo was pronounced lifeless Nov. 6, 2022, after his automotive veered off Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard and crashed close to the intersection of sixty fifth Avenue in central Vancouver. An post-mortem revealed the 26-year-old had really died from a gunshot wound to the pinnacle, based on investigators.
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Dan Gasperino mentioned investigators used telephone data and surveillance video to establish Yana Cook dinner because the shooter.
In his opening assertion, the prosecutor mentioned he would ask the Superior Court docket jury to search out Cook dinner, 27, responsible of first-degree homicide.
Gasperino mentioned the jurors would hear from the mom and son who have been driving east on Fourth Plain Boulevard behind Lombardo’s maroon Chevrolet Malibu. When the Chevrolet crashed, they pulled over to examine on the motive force. The son pulled an injured Lombardo from the automotive, who was later pronounced lifeless.
The jury will see hours of surveillance video over the course of the trial, Gasperino mentioned, which captured an Infiniti SUV pull as much as the left of the Chevrolet adopted by an obvious muzzle flash from the Infiniti’s passenger facet.
He mentioned he would additionally present jurors video of the Chevrolet leaving a close-by house complicated and being adopted by the Infiniti with its headlights off, regardless of the 8 p.m. darkness. Cook dinner will be seen getting into the passenger facet of the Infiniti, the prosecutor mentioned.
Cook dinner’s telephone data positioned him in Vancouver the weekend of the taking pictures and confirmed that he left city afterward, Gasperino mentioned.
Cook dinner was arrested, Gasperino mentioned, when he arrived for a probation check-in with the Washington State Division of Corrections in Raymond.
Protection legal professional Katie Kauffman requested the jury to pay shut consideration to the proof, which she mentioned can be missing. She advised jurors they’d hear about an incomplete investigation, conflicting info and witnesses whom she mentioned are biased.
The trial is scheduled to final seven days.
