Closing arguments begin in ex-Albuquerque cop case

BERNALILLO, N.M. (AP) ? After getting nearly 200 phone calls from his estranged wife in one day, Albuquerque police officer Levi Chavez went to her house while she was asleep, shoved his department-issued gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, prosecutors said Friday during closing arguments in the trial of Levi Chavez.

Assistant District Attorney Bryan McKay laid out the scenario, saying Chavez, 32, committed "cold-blooded, calculated, planned-out murder" when he killed Tera Chavez, 26, in 2007.

"This was not some heat of passion, an argument," McKay said.

"He thinks he has committed the perfect murder."

Prosecutors have said the couple had a volatile marriage and Tera Chavez was telling friends her husband had committed insurance fraud by staging the theft of their truck. The defense contends she committed suicide because she was depressed over her husband's repeated affairs.

But McKay, showing pictures of the couple's children, said if Tera Chavez killed herself because her husband wasn't coming home, the "next people coming home are them (the children).

"That's who's going to find her," he said. "Does that make any sense?"

Defense attorney David Serna called the former officer to the witness stand Wednesday to testify in his own defense.

Levi Chavez acknowledged having a string of mistresses, searching a website on how to kill someone with martial arts moves and ignoring his wife's calls for help. But the disgraced former officer denied that he killed his wife.

Much of the monthlong trial focused on the salacious details of love triangles and workplace romances, along with allegations of a botched investigation and charges that fellow APD officers who came to the scene in neighboring Los Lunas flushed key evidence down the toilet.

Levi Chavez acknowledged seeing someone else when he was just 16 and Tera was 15 and pregnant with their first child.

He also testified that his wife called him 176 times on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2007, but he ignored the calls and turned off his cellphone before going to spend the night with fellow officer Deborah Romero. The next day, he said he became worried when the calls stopped and his mother told him his wife had called in sick.

McKay said Chavez became concerned when he heard his wife called in sick because he realized she had not been missed at work, meaning no one would go to the house to check on her before the children came home from a camping trip with their grandfather.

He and his lawyer suffered an apparent setback last week when a crime scene expert testifying in his defense failed to pull off a demonstration of how the officer's wife might have been able to kill herself with his gun.

There was a bullet in the gun's chamber when it was found next to Tera Chavez's body, and there were questions raised about whether the gun's magazine was still seated inside the weapon. Prosecutors contend it would have been impossible for the woman to press the button to release the magazine after shooting herself.

McKay contends Levi Chavez hit the button in his "adrenaline rush."

Both sides have three hours Friday to wrap up their case before sending it to the jury.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/closing-arguments-begin-ex-albuquerque-cop-case-154245648.html

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