Sierra LaMar murder case: Opening statements in retrial set to begin

Opening statements in the retrial of Antolin Garcia-Torres, the man accused of killing Sierra LaMar, are scheduled to commence Monday morning. Earlier this year, an appeals court overturned the murder and kidnapping convictions for Garcia-Torres on grounds that prosecutors improperly consolidated three unrelated attempted kidnapping allegations from2009 with the charge of murdering LaMar. LaMar, who was 15 years old, disappeared from a Morgan hill bus stop on her way to school in 2012. Her body has yet to be found. In 2017, a jury convicted Garcia-Torres of her murder, in part because of DNA evidence that connected him to the crime, but that conviction was later overturned, with the court ruling there was improper cross-admission of evidence by tying the attempted kidnappings to the murder charge. The court said that unfairly prejudiced Garcia-Torres. In September, the defense requested that the judge in the retrial recuse himself because of prior work with the Santa Clara