Marcos Escareno
“Murder is messy,” Judge Ron Brown commented, more to himself it seemed than to the courtroom as defense attorney Katharine Elliott tried to keep a jury from seeing the death photos of Enoc Cruz, 21, when he was allegedly shot to death by Marcos Escareno, 14.
Judge Brown asked the lawyers to bring the pictures up to the bench. They were printed on sheets of computer paper, full size, and could be seen from anywhere in the courtroom, kind of blurry, and not at all the stark black and whites seen on the front pages of American newspapers through the 1950s, some of which now regarded as art.
But the untidiness of sudden, violent death is, as the judge said, messy.
Escareno is now 17.
Mr. Cruz is 21 forever.
Mr. Cruz died three years ago in the proverbial hail of bullets on the Manchester side of the Point Arena rez. The kid who allegedly shot him, Marcos Escareno, was so drunk when the cops interrogated him after the event he literally couldn’t stand up.
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