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LANCASTER (CNS) - Jurors were handed the case Thursday against a Lancaster man charged with shooting his four young children and their grandmother as she was babysitting them.
Deputy District Attorney Vanessa Zuniga urged jurors to convict Germarcus Lamar David, now 32, of first-degree murder for the Nov. 28, 2021, killings, while defense attorney Anna Brief urged them to find the lesser option of second-degree murder for a man whom she said did the "unimaginable."
The case stems from the killings of David's 11-year-old daughter, Namiyah, and his three sons, Germarcus Jr., 7, Kayden, 2, and Noah, 1, along with his mother-in-law, Ericka England, 51, who was babysitting the children while their mother was having dinner with friends.
The murder charge includes the special-circumstance allegation of multiple murders, along with allegations that he personally used a firearm.
David is also charged with three counts of assault on a child causing death involving his three youngest children.
The jury spent about 1 1/2 hours in deliberations after getting the case late Thursday afternoon. The panel is due back in court Friday to resume its deliberations.
In her closing argument, the prosecutor told jurors, "Each of the victims were shot multiple times."
The prosecutor told the panel to "hold him responsible for what he did," noting that the prosecution's theory is that he was upset that his estranged wife was moving on with her life after seeking a divorce upon learning of his extramarital relationship in which he fathered a child.
"He still wanted to be with her," Zuniga said, telling jurors that he wanted to make his estranged wife feel the way he felt when she "finally said no."
The prosecutor said David called his estranged wife twice as he sat in the driveway after returning home early from his job as a security guard and fired 20 shots -- with each shot hitting one of his targets -- about seven minutes after he entered the family's home.
She noted that the shots can be heard on surveillance video from outside the house, with eight initial shots and another nine gunshots 12 seconds later and three louder gunshots starting about two minutes later.
The prosecutor -- who showed the jury graphic photos of the victims' injuries -- said some of the victims were shot with both a gun and a shotgun, and called the killings "willful, deliberate and premeditated."
"He knows what he did," the deputy district attorney said, telling jurors that he "did it to get back" at his estranged wife. "He's finished off those that she loved."
The defendant tossed the gun in a desert area after driving away and then went to a Los Angeles County sheriff's station, where he asked a deputy to detain him and said, "It was a murder," Zuniga told the jury.
David's attorney told jurors that the case is "a homicide," and that identification is "not an issue in this case."
The defense lawyer urged the panel to find him guilty of second-degree murder, rather than the more serious offense of first-degree murder.
She told jurors that the jealousy was already stewing in her client's head when he heard the children's mother on a phone call catching up with a male friend two days before the killings and that his brain was trying to process that his marriage was dissolving.
David's lawyer said the desperation was building when he found out she was going out to dinner with friends the night of the killing, with the defendant knowing that "his marriage was literally on the brink."
David "didn't want this marriage to end" and wanted to talk things out with his estranged wife, but had difficulty reaching her in phone calls, according to his attorney.
"He shot everyone, but his brain is still in pause," Brief told the jury, noting that his estranged wife responded that she had already told him their marriage was over when he subsequently called her again to ask if they were "really done."
The defense attorney said David was "still processing what he just did" after going to the sheriff's station, saying that it went to the question of premeditation and deliberation.
"Based upon his actions, you can't say that," she said. "He was in such an emotional state."
David's attorney said his client "can't answer" when initially asked by a deputy why he thought he should be detained, saying that he was having "trouble processing."
"He can't answer. ... He had just done the unimaginable," she said.
While at the sheriff's station that night, David wrote a note indicating that he committed a crime and was "sorry," and subsequently told a deputy that there had been a "murder" at his house.
The mother of the four children returned from dinner with friends to find the house on Garnet Lane eerily quiet before spotting the bodies of her children and her own mother, Deputy District Attorney Diane Hong told jurors in her opening statement late last month.
"I think my husband killed my whole family ... I don't know what to do," the children's mother said in an emotional 911 call.
David has remained behind bars without bail since he was arrested at the sheriff's station the night of the killings.