News

Actions

Jury seated for Garcia trial

Posted at 3:18 PM, Sep 30, 2016
and last updated 2016-09-30 19:12:59-04

The jury has been selected for the trial against the man accused in the Creighton killings.

Six men and six women are picked as the jurors who will decide whether Anthony Garcia is guilty or innocent, four others are designated as alternates. 

Garcia has been in jail for three years waiting for the day to plead his innocence to a jury.  He's accused of brutally killing Thomas Hunter and Shirlee Sherman in 2008 and Dr. Roger and Mary Brumback in 2013 allegedly as revenge for being fired from the Creighton Pathology Department in 2001.

Friday, 70 potential jurors are narrowed down to a total of 16.

“There's obviously a role of the dice to any of it because you're limited in terms of questioning and none of us are mind readers so I think we agree we feel very happy about who we paneled, and lets go to trial,” said Bob Motta Jr., one of Garcia’s defense attorneys.

The prosecutors, defense, and judge questioned the jury pool on how they felt about seeing gruesome crime scene photos, if they could make decisions not based on emotions, and how much media coverage they've seen.

There are two African-Americans, and one potentially Hispanic juror, while the rest are Caucasian.  They received instructions from the judge before they left for the weekend.

Opening arguments will start on Monday, and testimony shortly after that.