A woman's body was stuffed into the trunk of her car. Now a jury will decide whether your fiance is to blame – the Mercury News

Oakland-one jury of the district of Alameda began to think about whether a man from Oakland put his unique fiance to death five years ago before filling her into the trunk of her car and giving up her body along an intergovernmental 580 Fundation in San Leandro.

The public prosecutor's office of Alameda County referred to a voluminous collage of surveillance material, mobile phone records and DNA evidence, while in the case of Richard Charles, who was exposed to the 32-year-old Anika Crane in March 2020 in March 2020 in March 2020. They said everything had happened when Crane Charles visited the Mills College at home. After that, Charles supposedly used an unidentified “helper” to dispose of her icinea.

“The accused decided to use his fists over and over again until she took her last breath,” said Colleen Clark, deputy district prosecutor. “And then the accused took very calculated and very conscious steps to try to cover up his crime and distract the guilt of him.”

For Charles' lawyer, the entire case was an unfounded story with hardly hard proving – including a final crime scene, an exact time of death or a motive.

“This is all that it is – it is a theory of what could have happened,” said defender Miki Tal. “But there is a lot of holes. This is like a puzzle with many missing parts.”

Crane's disappearance five years ago, the attention of the media or warnings of the law enforcement authorities brought little in the way. It took three months for the authorities to announce an arrest: their former fiance and friend of 12 years.

Crane and Charles had a “complicated” relationship and a complicated commitment, said the authorities. They met when she was 18 years old and separated several times in the next few years. While such a split, Charles testified a child with another woman, the authorities said.

Her relationship finally seemed to end shortly before the last seen on March 23, 2020, the authorities said. On this day after Crane came from work, she stopped her grandmother's house and then visited a spirits store near Bancroft and the 77th Avenues in East Oakland.

Surveillance material showed that Charles' Ford F-150 drove near the shop when another man got out of Crane's car. At that time, Charles seemed to get out of the pickup, to go past the man who had been with Crane and surprised her in the shop.

Both Crane and Charles then drove her own vehicles to Charles' Haus, a motorhome where Crane stayed last night.

Crane was never seen alive again. The following day, surveillance material from Cranes Ford Fiesta repeatedly showed and returned to Charles' Haus – in which only Charles appeared on surveillance material around his house. Charles also seemed repeatedly to choose an unnamed “helper” from West Oakland, while he allegedly spent hours cleaning his house, the prosecutors said.

The day after Crane had been seen alive, the prosecutors said that the surveillance material showed how Charles invited something into the trunk of Crane's car before driving the limousine to San Leandro and leaving it there. The following day, Charles submitted a job injury report for a swollen right hand, which according to the public prosecutor's office seemed to be fraudulent.

“These are the actions of a murderer who tries to cover up their crimes,” said Clark. She praised Crane's family for sending her to the plot so quickly when Crane stopped getting her phone and ultimately finding some of the last known video material of her lively video.

Clark has expressly obtained that Charles told the authorities twice that he hadn't spoken to Crane after seeing her in the spirits business, even though the surveillance material pointed out that Crane had then drove to his house. The authorities also found the tip of a blue latex glove between the cranes shoulder and the inner wall of the trunk of their car, which, according to court statements Charles' DNA, seemed to be contained.

Charles' lawyer spent almost an hour on Wednesday to see everything the prosecutors did not show: a motive, almost every blood at the scene of the crime or a suggestion that Charles does not work with the police. He never fled, emphasized valley. Rather, he tried to call Crane 19 times in the four days after her missing activity. And like valley, he said he called Crane's mother in call 911 to report her missing on March 25, 2020.

In his motorhome, the investigators found almost nothing in the way of Crane's blood, apart from a small amount of his old “dirty” slippers.

“This is completely evidence of evidence,” said Tal. “This is not a story, ladies and gentlemen. This is not 'what could have happened.' This is the criminal justice system and has the highest burden of proof.

Tal also questioned the claims of the prosecutors that Charles had a “helper” who led his alleged cleaning of the crime scene. She emphasized how this person never identified or heard by court as a reference to a half-baked case against her client.

“We have no idea who this person is,” said Tal. “You have no telephone content, no conversation does not even have the name of the person. If you only assume that it is a so-called” helper “, it makes no sense and is not what your job is.”

Moments in front of the jury, in order to be deliberate, Clark advocated simply following the evidence and returning with a conviction.

“Unanswered questions do not mean that the defendant gets away with the murder of Anika Crane,” said Clark. “The accused is not rewarded to hide his crime.”