Jurors had to decide Tuesday whether blood is stronger than
truth as testimony began in the trial to decide what role
– if any – Hollister’s Gustavo Covian played in an alleged 1998
murder-for-hire plot.
SANTA CLARA – Blood versus truth.
Twelve jurors from throughout Santa Clara County had to decide Tuesday which one was stronger as they began listening to testimony during the first day of the trial to decide what role – if any – Hollister’s Gustavo Covian played in an alleged murder-for-hire plot connected with the 1998 disappearance of a Gilroy restaurant owner.
In what could be a recurring theme throughout the trial, jurors tackled the duty of judging the credibility of the prosecution’s first witness – a friend of the missing restaurant owner who also happens to hail from the same small “puebla” in Mexico as Covian, and who Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite claimed was intimidated by Covian.
If convicted of being the hit man – as prosecutors have claimed he is – in the saga twisted with alleged murder, extortion, extra-marital affairs and a still-missing body, Covian, 39, could face life in jail without parole.
“Our families grew up so close, I don’t want a problem,” Morgan Hill resident Alfonso Bravo said while on the witness stand Tuesday, sitting only feet from Covian.
In an earlier documented interview with the district attorney’s office, Bravo had said that Covian bragged to him at a barbecue about killing the Gilroy resident and former Gavilan Restaurant Owner Young Kim, Waite said.
Your story is different today than before, “are you scared to face (Covian) today?” Waite asked Bravo, a soft-spoken, 44-year-old plumber who first befriended Young Kim while making repairs at his restaurant and last saw him only weeks before he was last seen Nov. 13, 1998.
“No,” Bravo said in a thick accent, looking across the room at Covian.
“Did (a friend) tell you that (Covian) said he would kill him if he told anybody about the murder?” Waite continued.
“Yes,” Bravo replied.
As the trial unfolds throughout the next few weeks, a handful of area convicted felons, armed robbers, liars and thieves – described as such by both attorneys – will stream to the witness stand in Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Thomas Hasting’s courtroom to provide information to the 10 male and two female jurors who will decide Covian’s fate.
Gustavo Covian; his now ex-wife and mother to three of his children, Maria Covian, 28; Gustavo’s brother Igancio, 31; and Kyung Kim, 46, are all charged with involvement in the disappearance and suspected murder of 49-year-old Young Kim, Kyung Kim’s husband of 24 years and father of her two children.
All four defendants are facing first-degree murder charges and have been in custody in county jail since 2001. The other defendants will go to trial following Gustavo Covian – the alleged triggerman.
“I urge all of you to listen with an open mind throughout this trial,” Defense Attorney Thomas Worthington said during his opening statement to the jury, promising to prove Waite’s prior claims that evidence concerning the Covians’ large gain in finances and subsequent witnesses pointing to Gustavo’s role in Young Kim’s disappearance are false.
The body was never found, and Kyung Kim’s friends and family will testify that he was depressed about his failing business; his deteriorating, arranged marriage; and that he was considered suicidal, Worthington said. Kyung Kim also had a Mexican girlfriend in Salinas, and was known to take lengthy trips to Mexico, Worthington said.
The Kim’s marriage – arranged by Young Kim’s family in the couple’s native Korea — steadily had been dissolving in the months before Young Kim’s disappearance. Police found divorce paperwork in Young Kim’s car after his disappearance, Waite said.
A week before her husband’s disappearance, Kyung Kim allegedly conversed with Maria Covian, a waitress at the Kim’s restaurant, about hiring someone to kill her husband. Maria Covian said she knew people who could do the job, but it would cost between $10,000 and $15,000, according to police interviews with various witnesses.
Gilroy police believe those people were Gustavo and Ignacio Covian.
On the night Young Kim was last seen, he was kidnapped at gunpoint from his Gilroy home by the two Covian brothers and taken to Gustavo Covian’s Hollister home, where he was murdered and then transported to be buried in Vibroras Creek, Waite said.
Police have searched the dry creek bed with cadaver dogs and earth moving equipment at least four times since 1999 – most recently last summer – but have yet to recover a body or any forensic evidence.
A .357 magnum was recovered from Gustavo and Maria Covian’s home during a search in 2000, but the gun cannot be matched to a bullet because the body hasn’t been found.
