BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — In less than 30 minutes, 12 Kern County jurors returned a guilty verdict in the case of Jose William Lara.
Lara is accused of killing Desiree Thompson in California City 11 years ago.
"He wasn't overwhelmed," said Prosecutor Christine Antonios during her closing statements. "He was almost bragging about it."
The case drew years of media and community attention as Thompson's mother fought to keep her daughter's memory alive.
Thompson disappeared on Jan. 7, 2012. The last place she was seen was leaving a local market supposedly heading home. She would never make it back though.
Earlier that evening, Thompson had been in a domestic dispute with her husband Edward Gibson. Gibson kicked in the door and threatened Thompson with a shotgun, ultimately making him a suspect in her disappearance.
However, as the years went one, Gibson was never charged in Thompson's case. 11 years later though, someone was.
The prosecution argued that Lara, angry over an assault at a party, picked Thompson up as she was making her way home that night. Antonios argued that Lara took Thompson back to his home, killed her by crushing her skull, burned her body and buried her in his backyard.
Antonios said that after he killed Thompson, Lara admitted to his crimes to two men: Javier Morfin Sr. and his son. Morfin Sr. would wait years before he finally went to police, but he would eventually be the one to help investigators break open this case, Antonios argued.
Morfin Sr. told police Lara described killing a woman one night and burying her in his backyard. Police searched the home in 2022 and found Thompson's remains.
Antonios argued that if Lara hadn't killed Thompson, why would he have confessed in such detail to others?
Deputy Public Defender Mark Stamper argued that the story the prosecution gave the jury was just that, a story.
Stamper argued that it wasn't his burden to prove who killed Thompson, it was up to the prosecution. He said so far, they hadn't done enough.
The defense argued that it was more likely Thompson's husband, whom with she had a history of domestic violence, who killed her and hired Lara to dispose of the body.
Stamper argued this would explain why her blood was found in his home and her remains in his backyard. He said the idea that Lara would kill Thompson, who was a stranger to him.
Even if Lara had told the Morfins he killed Thompson, Stamper argued, it could be just as reasonable that he knew details because he was involved in disposing her body, but didn't kill her.
The defense continued to push that it was more likely Gibson was involved given that after that night, he fled from police. Stamper said Gibson evaded police for years, even after investigators learned he was in Texas.
"They have not proven to you beyond reasonable doubt that Lara did the murder," Stamper told the jury.
During her rebuttal, Antonios told the jury that while Gibson and Thompson had been in a domestic violence incident just hours before she disappeared, the evidence surrounding Thompson's death pointed to Lara.
"Coincidence is not evidence," Antonios concluded.
Lara is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on June 16 at 8:30 am.
