A judge is expected to decide today if videotape of an alleged
hit man praying while he was detained in the back seat of a police
car will be allowed as evidence in one of Santa Clara County’s
biggest murder trials in years.
A judge is expected to decide today if videotape of an alleged hit man praying while he was detained in the back seat of a police car will be allowed as evidence in one of Santa Clara County’s biggest murder trials in years.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Hastings will listen to prosecuting and defense attorneys’ arguments about a key piece of evidence surrounding Gustavo Covian – the charged trigger man in an alleged murder-for-hire plot believed to be linked to the 1998 disappearance of a Gilroy restaurant owner.
“I’m going to request the judge exclude the tape as evidence from the trial because it’s a violation of my clients’ constitutional rights,” said Thomas Worthington, Covian’s defense attorney. “The camera was hidden, and my client’s prayers should not be used against him in a court of law – it’s like talking to a priest. These forms of speech are protected.”
The trial is scheduled to start Tuesday.
The tape in question supposedly captures Covian, 39, praying in Spanish that police “don’t find the gun.” The tape also contains a conversation Covian had with his fellow defendant and wife, Maria Covian, 29 – who will be tried separately – in the back seat of the patrol car after she was brought there by officers, according to Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite, who is prosecuting the case.
“Taping and recording a suspect in custody is normal procedure,” Waite said. “This is a key piece of evidence, and there’s no way the judge should agree to keep it from the jury. … The camera was not hidden, (Gustavo Covian) was staring into it the whole time.”
Following the judge’s decision on evidence today, jury selection will take place Monday and the trial will begin Tuesday. Gustavo Covian will be the first of four area defendants to go to trial in the case. Attorneys expect the trial to last fewer than two weeks.
Gustavo Covian and Maria Covian, Gustavo’s brother Ignacio Covian, 31, and Kyung Kim, 46, are all charged with involvement in the November 1998 disappearance and suspected murder of 49-year-old Young Kim, Kyung Kim’s husband of 24 years and owner of the former Gavilan Restaurant at 6120 Monterey Road.
The four defendants are facing charges of first-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison. All have been in custody in county jail since 2001.
“We have cameras in all of our patrol cars with audio and video capabilities,” said John Marfia, a detective with the Gilroy Police Department who is testifying as a witness to the video taping during the hearing at the Santa Clara Courthouse today. “Any time someone is in police custody they should assume they are being recorded. It’s just good police work, and it works as evidence in cases like this when the trial comes and the defendant tries to deny everything.”
Gilroy’s patrol cars contain mounted cameras that can be turned either way in the car. When turned forward they are used to record pull-overs and roadside driving-under-the-influence tests, when turned backward they focus on detainees, Marfia said.
When the trial begins, a grand jury selected from throughout the county will try to sort out exactly what happened to Young Kim, who according to court documents was last seen entering his former Gilroy home in the 9400 block of Rancho Hills Drive in November 1998. Following his disappearance, Kyung Kim waited 16 days to report her husband missing to Gilroy police.
The Kim’s marriage that was arranged by Young Kim’s family in the couple’s native Korea had been steadily dissolving at the time of Young Kim’s disappearance. Police found divorce papers in Young Kim’s green Mitsubishi 3000’s glove compartment after his disappearance, according to a 400-page court document released after the arraignment hearing last December.
A week before her husband’s disappearance, Kyung Kim allegedly approached 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 that it would cost between $10,000 and $15,000.
Police now believe those people were Maria Covian’s husband, Gustavo Covian, whom she lived with in Hollister at the time, and his brother Ignacio Covian. A source close to Gustavo Covian interviewed by police also verifies in court documents that on the night Young Kim was last seen he was kidnapped from his Gilroy home by the two Covian brothers before being transferred to Gustavo Covian’s Hollister home, murdered and buried in a nearby creek.
The source said that Gustavo Covian boasted of firing one single shot to the side of Young Kim’s head that killed him immediately. The body was then wrapped in plastic and the blood cleaned with bed sheets before the body was transferred from the Covian’s former Fairview Road home to Vibroras Creek, the source said.
Police have searched the creek at least four times since 1999 – sometimes with dogs – but have yet to find a body.
Following the alleged murder, Gustavo Covian met with Kyung Kim at least four times at the Gilroy Premium Outlets parking lot to demand more money for the murder – threatening the lives of her children if not paid up to $100,000, according to the documents.
“I shot your husband in the head, and I buried his body. Now you owe me $20,000. And if you don’t give it to me, I’ll kill your kids,” Gustavo Covian said to Kyung Kim in their first meeting, according to court documents.
In May of 2000, Maria Covian agreed to secretly meet with a Gilroy detective in Fremont, at which time she allegedly disclosed that her husband told her of the murder. Maria Covian has since filed for a divorce from her husband.
