Drug-related revenge murder trial begins in Lebanon County court

The trial of 20-year-old Jouse Kadriel Ortiz-Serrano, who admitted to shooting a man he believed shot his father weeks earlier, began Tuesday morning in the courtroom of Lebanon County Judge Bradford Charles.

Jean Alvarado Rosado died in a shooting on North 8th Street in the city on the evening of February 23, 2022. The shooting occurred across the street from the former Lebanon Middle School.

Ortiz-Serrano pleaded guilty to a general manslaughter charge in July 2023.

A jury of eight women and four men was selected Monday to decide whether to convict Ortiz-Serrano of first-degree murder, premeditated murder or manslaughter.

Read more: Jury decides degree of guilt of confessed 2022 murderer

The Lebanon County District Attorney is not seeking the death penalty, so a conviction for first-degree murder would carry a life sentence in prison.

In her opening statement Monday afternoon, defense attorney Gail Marr acknowledged that her client committed the fatal attack because he believed his father, Jose Serrano, had been shot and paralyzed by Alvarado Rosado during an attempted robbery a few weeks earlier.

Prosecutors did not appear to dispute this theory, and District Detective William Walton testified later that day that Alvarado Rosado had indeed emerged as a suspect in the alleged drug-related murder of the defendant's father.

Marr told Charles yesterday that she expected her client to testify in his defense.

The scene

As the trial began, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Dugan projected a series of city maps and photographs onto courtroom screens as he walked two North 8th Street residents through their memories of the night of the shooting.

Francis Pennington told the jury he was at home watching television when he heard what sounded like several gunshots. When police and paramedics arrived, he went outside and saw a man lying motionless on the sidewalk.

Pennington told the jury that he had installed an outdoor camera on the front of his house, 105 feet from the body. He secured the camera's audio and video recordings in his house before turning them over to police.

Dugan then played Pennington's audio and video footage. No one was visible, but 20 shots could be clearly heard in three groups, followed by fainter sounds.

Prosecutors contend that Ortiz-Serrano punched and pistol-whipped Alvarado-Rosado after the shooting, and Dugan argued, over Marr's objection, that the final sounds came from the beating. Charles told the jury that only they could determine what caused the sounds.

Neighbor Jennifer Boyer testified that she was home that evening when she heard several gunshots “quite quickly and in succession,” followed by a “ping” that she thought was a bullet hitting the metal railing of her porch.

“I got up, closed my front door and locked it,” she said, then looked out the window and “saw someone running past me toward the tracks.” Boyer eventually went outside before police arrived and saw a man “laying on the sidewalk in front of the church” a few houses south of her home.

Lebanon Police Lt. Sean Buck testified he was called to Lebanon Middle School for a shooting and was the third officer on the scene. He found a man with a “weak pulse” wearing a ski mask and lying on the sidewalk. He had “wide open eyes” and “long, slow, gasping breaths.” Blood was pooling in his mouth and he had “deep lacerations to his head.”

As he rolled the man onto his side, Buck told the jury that pieces of a handgun and a “cartridge casing” fell from his body to the pavement. In his opening statement Monday, Assistant District Attorney Brian Deiderick told the jury that the defendant struck Alvarado-Rosado with the pistol so hard that his weapon shattered.

Prosecution witness admits to helping defendant obtain a gun and track down Alvarado Rosado

Prosecutors then called Richard Schofield, a convicted burglar serving time in prison for violating parole. He admitted to selling drugs for the defendant's father, who had told him Alvarado-Rosado had shot him and he wanted to “get the problem sorted.” Schofield offered to find and kill Alvarado-Rosado himself, but the defendant wanted to go along with it against his father's wishes.

Schofield said he illegally purchased a 9mm handgun with money and a car provided by the defendant's father and tracked down Alvarado-Rosado by driving around town. He helped the defendant buy ammunition and test the gun, but went back to jail and remained there the day Alvarado-Rosado was killed.

Schofield added that the defendant's father had concerns about having Alvarado-Rosado killed, and he tried to dissuade the defendant from doing so, including by writing to him from prison, but the defendant refused, saying his father “couldn't make the right decisions.” Schofield testified that he was in the county jail when he learned of Alvarado-Rosado's murder and spoke with the defendant when he was placed two cells away after his arrest.

Alvarado-Rosado's street name was “Daniel.” According to Schofield, the defendant admitted that he “caught Daniel on the trail,” shot him, chased him as he fled, caught up with him, put a gun to the back of his head, shot him in the face, and pistol-whipped him.

Under cross-examination by Marr, Schofield, who was not charged in connection with Alvarado-Rosado's death, admitted that he supplied drugs for the defendant's father. He acknowledged that when questioned after Alvarado-Rosado's death, he asked investigators if he could be charged with aiding and abetting murder and that they told him, “I wouldn't get in trouble for giving evidence.”

Marr pressed Schofield to know if he was testifying before the prosecution to avoid being charged with aiding and abetting. “Sir, do you know how many laws you have broken?”

Schofield simply replied, “Yes.”

Jury sees graphic video of shooting and beating

Using extensive surveillance video from Lebanon Middle School and audio from the Pennington School's house camera, prosecutors showed how Alvarado-Rosado was shot, from the moment the defendant approached him at the corner of 8th and Church streets, firing 20 shots into his back, pursuing him as he fled south down 8th Street, and then pistol-whipping him for over a minute while he lay motionless on the sidewalk.

The videos, some of which were digitally edited, showed the attack from multiple angles and included a sequence in which the sound from Pennington's camera was synchronized with the video of the defendant firing.

Ex-girlfriend describes background to shooting

Geraldine Segarra-Vasquez, the defendant's girlfriend at the time, testified for the prosecution with the help of a Spanish interpreter.

She described the defendant's mood after his father was shot as upset and sad and said he told her he would “kill him if he found him,” although she did not say clearly when he said that in connection with the shooting.

She told the jury that after shooting his father, the defendant was given a gun and kept it in a dresser in the bedroom of his apartment.

On the night of Alvarado's murder, they left the defendant's apartment to buy milk and soda. The first store they stopped at was closed, so they went to a second store nearby that was open, made some purchases, and left the store.

Segarra-Vasquez testified that the defendant went back into the store, came out, made a phone call, told her “he saw the guy who killed his father,” and fled toward his apartment.

She saw the defendant again a few minutes later when she returned to the apartment. He was outside and wearing a mask, she recalled. She denied seeing a gun and said the defendant didn't say anything and ran past her.

Segarra-Vasquez told the jury that the defendant returned to his apartment a few minutes later with bloody hands and a broken gun. He was out of breath.

She testified that the defendant said, “I killed him. I'm going back to the place where I did it.” He then put the gun on the ground and walked away.

Out of fear, Segarra-Vasquez left the defendant's apartment and went home.

Videos of the defendant and Sagarra-Vasquez in the two stores show the defendant wearing a white hoodie and dark pants that closely resemble the clothing worn by Alvarado-Rosado's shooter in another video.

Investigator remembers questioning of the accused

District Detective William Walton, then working for the Lebanon Police Department, testified about the interrogation of the defendant that he and Lt. Keith Uhrich conducted two days after the murder.

Walton said he was involved in the earlier investigation into the shooting of the defendant's father and found drugs in his apartment. He added that “street talk” suggested Alvarado-Rosado shot the defendant's father, making him a suspect.

During questioning, the defendant denied any involvement in Alvarado-Rosado's murder, insisting he was at home at the time. When confronted with the pieces of the broken gun, he said, “Whoever did it, they did a good job.”

When it was suggested that he may have lost control during the encounter with Alvarado-Rosado, the defendant responded, according to Walton, “I don't know who shot my father.” Walton added that the defendant never contacted police about the shooting of his father.

The hearing was scheduled to continue on Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m.

Questions about this story? Suggestions for a future LebTown article? Contact our newsroom using this contact form and we will do our best to respond.

Free news isn't cheap. If you value the journalism LebTown provides to the community, then help us make it sustainable by becoming a local news champion. You can unlock additional coverage for the community by supporting our work with a One-time contributionor as monthly or Annual Member. You can cancel at any time.

Drug-related revenge murder trial begins in Lebanon County court

You may also like...

Recent Posts

Drug-related revenge murder trial begins in Lebanon County court

You may also like...

Eastern Kentucky judge dies in courthouse shooting, county sheriff arrested • Kentucky Lantern

Arkansas man charged with capital crime in connection with wife's death

Six Vols we'd like to see more of against Kent State

Recent Posts