By Jessica Keating, jkeating@VenturaCountyStar.com
July 9, 2004

A Ventura County prosecutor said the key to the brutal slaying of college freshman Valerie Zavala Wilson is this: a lone shoe print near the drainage ditch where the 19-year-old's half-naked body was found the morning of New Year's Day 2003.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox told jurors Thursday the shoe print belongs to former Fillmore High School homecoming king Samuel Puebla, 19, who is charged with murder and attempted rape in connection to Zavala Wilson's death.

"The evidence will show that this is as close to a smoking gun as you're going to get," Fox told jurors as she outlined a "road map" of the case against Puebla.

He has denied he was involved in the slaying. His defense attorney is expected to present opening statements to the jury this morning.

Puebla was a 17-year-old high school senior at the time of Zavala Wilson's death, so he is ineligible for the death penalty. Instead, he faces life in prison without parole if convicted. He was arrested in June 2003.

In her opening statements to jurors Thursday, Fox stressed the importance of the shoe print found near Zavala Wilson's body, which was discovered by a jogger on South Mountain Road between Santa Paula and Fillmore.

The shoe print matches a pair of Nike tennis shoes Puebla gave detectives during one of his interviews after Zavala Wilson's death, Fox said.

According to the prosecution, Puebla had the motive and the opportunity to kill Zavala Wilson, who was home for the holidays during a break from classes at San Jose State University.

"This girl was beaten. She was strangled. There is nobody else implicated in this case," Fox said.

Puebla was the last person seen with Zavala Wilson after they left a New Year's Eve party with a third person, Fox said. The woman had offered Puebla a ride home.

There is no physical evidence that Zavala Wilson was raped, Fox said, but she told jurors Puebla gave police contradicting stories about what happened on the drive to his house.

First, he told police he had no sexual contact with the woman. Then, he said he tried to kiss her but that she "totally rejected him." Finally, he said he and Zavala Wilson had sex in the car.

Fox told jurors to pay close attention to DNA evidence that links Puebla to the crimes charged. She said Puebla's saliva was found inside a bra worn by Zavala Wilson. Blood and saliva stains on one of Puebla's jackets, meanwhile, are a match to Zavala Wilson, the prosecutor said.

According to Fox, the stains on Puebla's jacket were most likely deposited when he moved Zavala Wilson's body. She said she will provide evidence the defendant struggled with Zavala Wilson in the parking lot at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Fillmore, where sheriff's detectives acting on a "true hunch" later found several items belonging to the woman, including a pair of panties and an earring.

The church parking lot is the same area where Puebla previously told police he stashed panties he had stolen from women, Fox said. At some point after the struggle in the church parking lot, Zavala Wilson's body was stuffed into the drainage ditch on South Mountain Road. A branch was wedged against the woman's body to hold it in place, Fox said.