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The prosecutor described the couple’s relationship as sometimes “volatile,” but by turns informed by being “madly in love” with one another and “verbally and physically abusive.”
The defense attorney, however, disputed her client was abusive and testimony would show his on-again, off-again girlfriend behaved erratically at times and was occasionally violent toward him, and the gun he used to shoot her in the chest “went off by accident.”
Those were among the attorneys’ opening statements Tuesday of an expected three-week trial in Solano County Superior Court, where differing views of Gage Harold Pontarelli, 29, of Vacaville, set the stage for a jury to convict or acquit him of a first-degree murder charge of fatally shooting Samantha Jack more than four years ago in Vacaville.
Pontarelli is accused of killing Jack, 22, of Elk Grove, during the early morning hours of July 22, 2018, in a detached garage in the 400 block of Kentucky Street, where they had argued loudly enough to wake up neighbors before the gunfire.
The trial’s first day began shortly 10:30 a.m. in Department 11 in the Justice Center in Fairfield, where Judge William J. Pendergast read jury instructions to 12 jurors and four alternates. He told the 16-member panel that the attorneys’ opening statements would outline what they believe the evidence would show.
Standing at a lectern and facing jurors at the outset of her statement, Senior Deputy District Attorney Julie Underwood described Jack as a “creative” young woman “coming into her own” and in love with Pontarelli. She then pointed to him seated next to his attorney, Jessica Agnich of Redwood City.
Underwood referred to text messages between Pontarelli and Jack, their sentiments, leading up to the shooting, ranging from passionate love for one another to name-calling to “back-in-love-with-you mode.”
Friends of the couple, she added, would testify that the couple shared terms of endearment in front of them.
But Jack also would “hit herself in the face” if she were upset and a video to be shown at a later date would show Jack doing that, with the couple then going to a local 7-Eleven convenience store to buy ice to place on her self-inflicted injuries, said Underwood.
And an audio recording, she said, would reveal an increasingly volatile argument between the two.
“You’re going to hear the anger of the defendant,” said Underwood, adding, “Samantha Jack loved the wrong person.”
Pontarelli “loved guns,” fancied himself being a gangster, and is alleged to have shot Jack with a .40-caliber handgun, she said and added that jurors would hear him say, “That’s why I’m a real gangster” as the gun is fired.
Then Underwood, seated at the prosecutor’s table, played the audio recording of the argument the couple engaged in on July 22, and Jack could be heard shrieking as she spoke while the couple used one expletive-filled statement after another. Although the words were, at time, difficult to discern clearly, Underwood said Jack said, “Are you going to pull the trigger?” just before what sounded like a gunshot.
Afterward, Agnich opened her remarks by challenging the DA’s charge of first-degree murder, saying, “Gage Pontarelli did not intentionally kill” Jack, adding, “He did not murder her.”
Pontarelli’s mother did not like Jack and had asked her not to come to the house, she said.
Agnich challenged Underwood’s claim of her client’s abuse of Jack and said, “There’s no evidence he was abusive to her.”
On the contrary, jurors would hear from witnesses that Jack was physically abusive to Pontarelli, who would “try to calm her down,” hear that she would threaten to kill him, and tried to run him over with a vehicle, she said.
Agnich also noted allegations of Jack’s erratic behavior, one of them being the young woman once “jumped from a second-floor balcony.”
“This is the context” that led up to the shooting, she said and disputed a claim that Pontarelli said, “That’s why I’m a gangster.”
After the shooting, Pontarelli did not flee or alter evidence inside the detached garage, but stayed and called 911, said Agnich. She ended her remarks by telling jurors they would hear testimony that the gun “went off by accident.”
Underwood’s first witness, Russell Fisher, who lives across the alley from the detached garage, testified that the couple’s loud arguing roused him out of bed.
He said he recalled, after getting dressed, of “hearing the word ‘gun’ ” and heard a gunshot, then overheard Pontarelli’s mother ask her son, “Gage, what did you do?”
Noting he was trained in CPR, Fisher said he entered the garage and tried to revive Jack, slumped near a couch, with chest compressions. At that moment, he could see “a clear bullet wound” to her chest, he said.
Pontarelli, he said, was “in total shock” and “distraught,” he told Underwood.
Later, two Vacaville police officers arrived and one of them took over performing CPR and the witness said he later saw an officer handcuff Pontarelli.
On cross-examination, Fisher told Agnich that Pontarelli did not interfere with his rendering of CPR, was “very shaken” and used his cellphone.
During the afternoon session, Agnich cross-examined the prosecution’s third witness, Vacaville Police Sgt. Robert Myers, the first officer to arrive at the scene. He confirmed Pontarelli was cooperative, upset and crying.
Shortly after arriving at the scene, Vacaville firefighter and paramedic Kevin Berkery, the next witness, told Underwood that he determined Jack had no pulse and was not breathing. He then called a Kaiser Permanente physician who confirmed Jack was dead based on Berkery’s “field,” or on-site, evaluation.
Underwood’s fifth witness, Jeff Datzman, a now-retired Vacaville police computer forensics expert, testified that he was able to extract video from Fisher’s Nest Doorbell, a battery-powered video doorbell, and remove wind noise and enhance the audio.
Underwood produced a transcript of the audio for jurors to read while the doorbell video with audio played, but Agnich questioned the accuracy of a portion of the transcript and objected to its use. She argued that the transcript’s wording differed from what was actually said in the audio portion of the video and might prejudice jurors.
Out of the presence of the jury, Pendergast told the attorneys he would collect the transcripts and permit jurors to hear the audio portion only. Besides, he added, the audio is considered evidence and jurors would be allowed to hear it during their deliberations.
Now and then during the day’s proceedings, Pontarelli, a large man at nearly 6 feet tall, weighing more than 300 pounds and dressed in a gray suit jacket over a light-blue shirt and beige sweater, rocked slightly back and forth in his chair and did not appear to take notes.
During a court appearance on July 24, 2018, in Judge John B. Ellis’ courtroom in the Hall of Justice in Fairfield, Pontarelli pleaded not guilty.
During a held-to-answer arraignment following a 2019 preliminary hearing, he again pleaded not guilty.
Court records also showed Pontarelli has no history of violence. However, he was arrested in 2016 in connection with a vehicular burglary and auto theft in downtown Vacaville.
If found guilty of the first-degree murder charge, Pontarelli, under California law, faces 25 years to life in state prison, with the possibility of more time for using a firearm.
Pontarelli remains without bail in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.
The trial resumes at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Department 11 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
Originally published at Richard Bammer