May 2—Ector County jurors who must decide if a West Odessa man choked his wife during an argument in the early days of the pandemic watched the body cam footage of the responding officers on the first day of the defendant’s trial Tuesday.
Fabian Quinonez Aguilar, 29, was indicted on an assault family violence charge after someone called 911 on the evening of Monday, March 16, 2020, asking deputies to check on Alexandra Aguilar’s welfare.
When deputies arrived, they found Fabian Aguilar at the couple’s trailer on West Riggs Drive watching the cartoon Rugrats with his 5-year-old daughter and toddler son. His 4-month-old daughter was also home. Aguilar told the deputies his wife had taken off on foot after a loud, embarrassing verbal argument. He denied ever touching her or having any firearms inside the house.
Aguilar told deputies he called 911 to check on her, but jurors were told by deputies Aguilar did not call 911, either his mother-in-law or his sister-in-law called.
Moments after their arrival, the deputies found Alexandra Aguilar standing behind the trailer next door with her mother, who told them Aguilar had been beating her daughter since Saturday and she needed to go to the hospital.
Former Ector County Sheriff’s Deputies Zach Orto and Joseph Chew testified Alexandra Aguilar had bruises extending from one temple down to her jawline, swelling on the other side of her face and small purple spots or petechiae on her neck, consistent with being choked. Assistant Ector County District Attorney Henry Eckels also showed the jurors pictures of the injuries.
As Aguilar was asking Chew why someone would leave a warm, beautiful house or somebody that would provide for them, Orto was questioning Alexandra Aguilar.
Alexandra Aguilar told Orto she’d called 911 that morning because her husband had become angry with her, thrown things under the fridge and struck her in the head. She said no one ever came and her husband went to work.
When he got home from work, she said Aguilar became angry with her again because she didn’t want to make dinner as it was her 28th birthday and she was tired. She told Orto, Aguilar began beating her and banging her head on the floor. At one point, she admitted grabbing a knife in order to get away from him, but he took it away from her and they ended up fighting in the bedroom.
“He tried to break my neck. He tried to twist my neck,” a highly emotional Alexandra Aguilar said. She then described how her husband placed pressure on her inner thigh to make her leg go numb so she couldn’t leave. He done both things in the past, she said.
Alexandra Aguilar told Orto she felt like she had a concussion.
She left the house while her husband was in the restroom, telling her daughter she’d be back, Alexandra Aguilar said. She knew she’d never be able to leave with all three of the kids, she said.
“I think he was trying to kill me,” she said.
When asked if she wanted to press charges, Alexandra Aguilar told Orto she didn’t know before dissolving into tears again and saying she wants a divorce, she wants her kids and she wants her husband to leave.
Orto testified following Fabian Aguilar’s arrest, Alexandra Aguilar asked for deputies to come pick up Fabian’s gun for safekeeping.
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Johanna Curry, Orto testified Alexandra Aguilar changed her story three times when speaking with him. At first she said she was choked, then she said “not this time” and then she again said she was choked.
Eckels told jurors during opening statements Alexandra Aguilar will testify she has gaps in her memory, but knows she came to on the bedroom floor. He also said they will hear from Medical Center Hospital personnel that her neck injuries are consistent with being choked.
Chew told Eckels that despite insisting he’d never laid a hand on his wife, Fabian Aguilar did not seemed at all surprised when he was handcuffed.
“Would you be surprised if you’d been arrested several times before for the same thing?” Curry asked.
Chew said he’d never been arrested so he didn’t know.
Aguilar is charged with assault family violence/impeding breath or circulation, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison.
This is the first trial for newly elected Ector County District Court Judge Lori Ruiz-Crutcher to preside over.