On the witness stand, defendant accused of 2021 murder tells her story – The Vacaville Reporter

The defense attorney for Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, charged in the 2021 killing of a 19-year-old woman in Fairfield, called his client to the stand Tuesday and called the fatal shooting “an accident.”

Quintanilla, 24, of Pittsburg, then told William Alan Welch that a man she once had a romantic relationship with, Juan Parra-Peralta, was holding the gun when it fired. According to court documents, the bullet entered Leilani Beauchamp’s head and killed her.

But then Welch went into other details of the case, including that she drove with Parra-Peralta to Los Angeles on Oct. 2 to attend a sideshow, a demonstration of car stunts, often at a street intersection.

When she testified before Department 11 of Solano County Superior Court in Fairfield, she also admitted that both she and Parra-Peralta owned firearms, Glock semi-automatic weapons, at the time.

As she began her testimony, Quintanilla, dressed in an overlong beige sweater over black pants, wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.

She is charged in the Oct. 30 death of Leilani Beauchamp of Carmel as Beauchamp slept in a bedroom at a residence on Cascade Lane. Her brother, Marco Antonio Quintanillia, 30, also of Pittsburg, is charged with aiding and abetting and is also in court.

Welch showed video and still images of firearms the couple owned, one of which she said she bought for Parra-Peralta, then 21, at his request to help him search for the person or people who stole his Cadillac CTS.

Quintanilla confirmed that her relationship with Parra-Peralta, a former Travis Air Force Base airman who was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony in the case, was “always back and forth.”

She described him denying her access to his social media accounts, but they later reconciled on October 11.

But she also described Parra-Peralta’s occasional behavior as erratic, including breaking into her Pittsburg apartment, physically stalking her and sexually abusing her.

At another side event in the Bay Area, Quintanilla saw Beauchamp with Parra-Peralta but did not confront her, she told Welch, a San Francisco-based attorney. She said they “broke up after the sideshow.”

The guns belonging to Parra-Peralta and her remained in Parra-Peralta’s custody, she said.

Quintanilla recalled that she arrived at the Cascade Lane home at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 30 to retrieve some of her personal belongings from the second-floor bedroom and Parra-Peralta “yelled at me and asked her what she did.” in the house.

She mentioned that she was trying to collect her jade bracelet, but she couldn’t remember who pulled back the covers to see Beauchamp lying there. Quintanilla told Welch that she told Beauchamp she was only at the house to “pick up my things.”

To demonstrate what happened, Welch once walked past the jury box and stood near the witness stand and a door to set up the scene in Parra-Peralta’s bedroom before the shooting.

Parra-Peralta was standing near the bedroom door, Quintanilla said, with a gun in her right hand and placing it on her left shoulder while Welch pointed to her shoulder with his right hand. With her left hand, she grabbed his right wrist, pushed his arm back toward the headboard and “the gun went off,” she said.

“I just ran out of the bedroom afterward” and sat in a car outside the house, she said, adding that she “had no idea what happened to Beauchamp.”

Later, she and Parra-Peralta, who had recovered his Cadillac, traveled to San Leandro, then to San Jose, where they purchased items at a Home Depot, including a shovel, and then on to Salinas. According to Parra-Peralta’s testimony at the start of the trial more than three weeks ago, he threw Beauchamp’s body, wrapped in a blanket, down a hill off a country road.

Quintanilla testified that Parra-Peralta was in control of the couple’s guns during their trip on October 30, contradicting previous testimony from Parra-Peralta, who testified that she had pointed a gun at him during their trip .

Later that day, they returned to Quintanilla’s apartment in Pittsburg, but Quintanilla said she did not know where Beauchamp’s body was.

“I didn’t know her body was in the trunk of the Cadillac,” she testified, adding that when the trunk was finally opened, she saw a blanket and a white plastic bag.

While he was at the Pittsburg apartment, Parra-Peralta washed his clothes and she showered, but when she got out of the shower, she recalled, he was “standing by the washing machine,” suggesting he was blocking any attempt to get her to leave.

They left Pittsburg and returned to the Cascade Lane home, where they traveled to Travis AFB in the early morning hours of October 31st. There they met Parra-Peralta’s friend and fellow pilot Damien Ponders. They all returned to the Cascade Lane house, where Ponders and Parra-Peralta helped clean up the second-floor bedroom and the two men drove to Vallejo to dispose of the blood-stained mattress in a Vallejo dumpster.

Quintanilla and Parra-Peralta later returned to Pittsburg, where she told her brother Parra-Peralta that she had “killed someone.”

Marco Quintanilla was surprised by the news, she said.

Under cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Ilana Shapiro got Jessica Quintanilla to admit that she made phone calls from jail, defrauded Parra-Peralta, sold marijuana in 2021 and helped purchase a firearm for Parra-Peralta.

As a final claim, Shapiro repeatedly showed Quintanilla copies of her Instagram messages indicating that she had attempted to purchase a handgun, specifically a Glock 17, in Sacramento.

If convicted, Jessica Quintanilla faces 25 years to life in prison and possibly more time for using a firearm. And if convicted on the felony charge, Marco Quintanilla, who posted bail and was released after his arrest in 2021, could face up to three years in prison and possibly more time as a previously convicted felon, depending on the circumstances of the case.

The trial continues at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Department 11 of the Justice Center in Fairfield and closing arguments are expected to begin in the afternoon.