A lifelong criminal and drug user who claims he was recruited to
dig up the body of a missing Gilroy restaurant owner buried in a
creek east of Hollister took the witness stand Monday in the
murder-for-hire case of Gustavo Covian.
SANTA CLARA – A lifelong criminal and drug user who claims he was recruited to dig up the body of a missing Gilroy restaurant owner buried in a creek east of Hollister took the witness stand Monday in the murder-for-hire case of Gustavo Covian.
Danny Ray Callahan, 47, who was transported from a Washington state prison to testify, recalled the story of how Gustavo Covian’s brother Ignacio Covian, who is the father of two of Callahan’s grandchildren, asked him to help dig up the body of Young Kim in Vibroras Creek near Fairview and Churchill roads in March of 1999.
Callahan had come to Hollister to participate in a robbery with the brothers, but when that went afoul Ignacio “Joe” Covian – who will go to trial following his brother – asked Callahan to transport the body in his trunk and rebury it somewhere in Washington.
“We all had shovels (Gustavo and Ignacio Covian and Adrian Vizcaino, a convict turned state’s witness ),” Callahan said Monday. “We parked as close as we could on Fairview and from what I understood it was only a few hundred feet away. But we abandoned the plan when we saw a lady with her kids on a porch nearby.”
Later that year Callahan led Gilroy detectives to the area to search for the body of former Rancho Hills Drive resident Young Kim, who was last seen on Nov. 13, 1998. But numerous searches since then have failed to yield a body or any significant amount of forensic evidence.
Gustavo Covian’s attorney, Thomas Worthington, questioned Callahan’s statements and repeatedly asked him if he was getting a shorter sentence in Washington for testifying. Callahan denied that, but did say that “I would never believe a word (Ignacio Covian) said.”
When asked by Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite Monday, Callahan could not positively identify Gustavo Covian as one of the other two Spanish-speaking men with shovels that day.
Gustavo Covian, 39; his now ex-wife and mother to three of his children, Maria Covian, 28; Ignacio Covian, 31; and Kyung Kim, 46, all are 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 – none of who can legally testify in the current trial – will go to trial following Gustavo Covian.
If convicted of being the hired gun in the twisted saga complete with alleged murder; extortion; and an abusive, arranged marriage, Covian could face life in jail without parole.
Waite claims that following the murder organized by Maria Covian, Gustavo Covian continued to extort Kyung Kim for up to $100,000. Gustavo and Maria Covian purchased a new home and two new cars between 1998 and 1999, but Worthington claims they were paid for by loans from other members of the Covian family.
Korean speaking witnesses who appeared at the trial Wednesday verified loaning Kyung Kim $50,000 between July 1998 and March 1999; Worthington said the loans were for the restaurant.
Police have searched the alleged Hollister grave site of Young Kim in the Vibroras Creek’s dry bed near Churchill Road 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 forensic tests for blood, hair, fibers and skin were inconclusive, and the gun cannot be matched to a bullet because the body hasn’t been found.
