Some jurors flinch as the suicide of a Tampa officer's killer is shown at his girlfriend's trial.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published May 10, 2003
[Times photos: John Pendygraft]
A juror partially shields her eyes as Nestor DeJesus raises a gun to his chin in the surveillance video in which DeJesus commits suicide.
Mickie Mashburn, front, and Brenda Merrero, rear center, watch the surveillance video in the trial of Paula Gutierrez.
TAMPA - Barricaded with his girlfriend and a hostage, a cop killer chain-smoked cigarettes and told police his plan.
"I'm going to put a bullet in my head," Nestor DeJesus said. "I can't go to jail."
DeJesus pointed his Mac 11 semiautomatic under his chin. It was the same gun he had used hours earlier to murder Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero.
"You don't want to do this," said hostage negotiator Roberto Batista. "I know you don't."
DeJesus and his girlfriend, Paula Gutierrez, planned to kill themselves at the count of three. "One . . . two . . . " he said, and shot himself.
Gutierrez balked, with a second to go. Before surrendering, she tenderly touched DeJesus' slumped body and called him "Baby."
Captured by video surveillance, the final desperate minutes of the couple's three-hour standoff with police were played Friday for jurors at the Hillsborough courthouse, where Gutierrez is on trial, charged with first-degree murder.
Some jurors hid their faces from the footage. At least one had to close her eyes.
Prosecutors hope the tape conveys a picture of Gutierrez as DeJesus' willing accomplice, not the killer's terrified pawn portrayed by her defense attorney. At one point during the standoff, the videotape captures DeJesus and Gutierrez in a prolonged kiss.
After robbing a South Tampa Bank of America branch on the morning of July 6, 2001, the couple fled to the nearby Crossings Apartments, where DeJesus gunned down the pursuing police officer. They burst through the door of an apartment and took the resident, Isaac Davis, hostage.
Police gave the phone to Detective Batista, a hostage negotiator.
The detective repeatedly urged DeJesus to surrender. He told him to think of his 2-year-old daughter, Ashley. She could visit him in prison.
"Yeah, but do you know . . . what kind of torture that is?" DeJesus said, on the tape played for jurors Friday.
The detective appealed to his pride. "You're Hispanic, like I am," the detective said. "I know the way you think. . . . We are very proud people."
If he knew about pride, DeJesus countered, he would know that "surrender is slavery," and "I would never allow any man to enslave me."
DeJesus denounced "society" and "white people," and said: "They took over control of everything."
Suicide was the easy way out, the detective said. DeJesus disagreed. "No, that's the hardest way," he said. "You think it's easy to take your own life?"
Once more, the detective mentioned DeJesus' young daughter. DeJesus began weeping and hung up the phone. When the detective called back, Paula Gutierrez answered.
The detective told her she wouldn't go to jail if she turned herself in.
Gutierrez was skeptical. She said she had helped rob the bank and knew a police officer was dead. She worried police would "step on our necks" and "beat us" if the couple surrendered.
"I'm not going to go to jail and get raped," Gutierrez said.
The detective told her she had been watching too many movies.
Taking the phone again, DeJesus expressed his dread of incarceration. "A day in jail feels like a week," he said. "What I did is a capital crime, correct?"
DeJesus said he knew he would face the death penalty. The detective, trying to give him hope, told him the murder was not premeditated but happened "in a heat of passion."
DeJesus saw through the ruse. "When was the last time you ever saw a premeditated cop killer?" he asked. "Never. It's never premeditated."
DeJesus demanded a pack of cigarettes and said he was shaking like a leaf. He wanted an unopened pack so police couldn't drug him. Police left him a pack outside the apartment door.
In his final minutes, DeJesus sat smoking cigarette after cigarette, steeling himself for the suicide pact. "Let me know when you're ready," he told Gutierrez.
Once, DeJesus put the Mac 11 under his chin and started counting. He lost his nerve. He cursed. Soon after, he followed through.
Gutierrez approached his body. She appeared to check for a pulse. "He's dead," she said, picking up the telephone.
The detective told her to come out with her hands up. She obeyed. In minutes, SWAT officers swarmed the apartment.
Gutierrez will be imprisoned for life if convicted of first-degree murder. Although she did not shoot Officer Marrero, prosecutors said, she is culpable for the death because it happened while she fled from the robbery.
Her trial continues Monday with the testimony of Isaac Davis, the hostage, who escaped at the end of the standoff.
