It took two thousand four hundred forty-nine grueling days after Yik Oi Huang was brutally attacked and left for dead at a Visitacion Valley playground for the criminal trial of the man charged with this and numerous additional crimes to begin.
On Monday, Assistant District Attorney Nathan Quigley presented an hour-long opening statement tracing a more than two-week-long crime spree across San Francisco’s southern neighborhoods. The case before the seven-man, five-woman jury involves at least seven criminal incidents in January 2019, encompassing murder, inflicting injury on an elder likely to cause great bodily injury, child endangerment, burglary, robbery, carjacking, and kidnapping. The injuries — including a skull fracture and brain damage — suffered by Huang, an 88-year-old grandmother and Chinese immigrant, were found by the San Francisco medical examiner to have resulted in her death 12 months later. The defendant, Keonte Gathron, is currently representing himself and will present his opening statement on Tuesday morning.
Assistant District Attorney Quigley’s presentation minimized flair as he methodically described each crime and each victim, giving space for the facts and details of each crime to have their impact on the jury. He well prepared the jury to hear testimony from many elderly, Chinese-speaking, vulnerable victims and witnesses whose full recollections may be frayed by the severity of what they felt and the extraordinary length of time since the crime spree occurred. He shared extensive audio and video footage compiled in the investigation that led up to the emotional and shocking moment caught on a police body camera of Huang’s bloodied body lying next to a recycling bin at the playground where she was attacked. The sight of her bloodied face and pants and shirt pulled out of place produced audible gasps from the courtroom audience and a somber silence from the jury members.
Quigley not only laid out details of the many incidents, but he also connected them to the defendant through voluminous videos showing the defendant before, during, and after his interactions with victims and forensic DNA evidence associated with virtually every crime scene. Strikingly, as previously described in The Voice of San Francisco, the defendant’s victims fit a pattern of vulnerability. Most were Asian immigrants, Chinese-speaking, often quite old or relatively young.
Critical questions remain regarding the potential defense arguments and evidence that will be offered. By sheer volume alone, Quigley has left the defendant little opportunity to claim mistaken identity, wrongful use of DNA evidence, or even self-defense. Self-represented criminal defendants, especially on such serious charges, are typically granted greater leeway by judges than licensed attorneys. One outcome to be avoided is a future appellate court ruling granting a new trial on grounds of ineffective representation.
Yik Oi Huang’s family, friends, and community — as well as those of the other victims — have waited 2,449 days to reach today’s start of the jury trial. On Day 2,450, they will hear the defendant, in his own words, in court, account for, explain, or defend his actions.
The trial is expected to continue into October.
