SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Ariz. (KGUN) — Was Santa Cruz County rancher George Alan Kelly an angry man, eager to be aggressive against smugglers crossing his property? Or was he a frightened man just trying to scare off intruders by carefully firing his gun in the air?
Those are the two images of Kelly being painted as his second degree murder trial began over charges of killing a border crosser on his property.
Prosecutor Kim Hunley says there was no threat, no legal reason to fire a gun toward Gabriel Cuen Buitimea. He and a companion were a football field away from Kelly, and headed to Mexico—not toward Kelly and his wife at his house.
“Out of nowhere, without saying a thing, without any legal justification, George Alan Kelly let off a barrage of semi automatic assault rifle fire at these two men,” Hunley said during her opening statement.
She referenced Kelly's contact with law enforcement that became more evasive throughout the day, and added more and more intruders to the account of people crossing his land.
911 called Kelly to ask what happened. By then he had found the man’s body, but would not describe him as a man.
Kelly on phone with 911 operator: “There was just an animal laying face down."
911 operator: "An animal?"
Kelly: "An animal—and you know what an animal is, it's not a vegetable or a mineral.”
The bullet was never recovered. The slug from the AK-47 had enough power to enter the victim’s back, exit through his front, and be lost in the landscape.
Investigators did find nine shell casings from Kelly’s gun near the back of his house, and say when Kelly led them to the body of the victim, the entry wound in his back lined up with the path it would have traveled from Kelly’s house.
Hunley says the shooting happened about 2:30 in the afternoon, but it was after midnight, a half hour into an interview with a Sheriff’s detective, before Kelly ever admitted firing his gun.
Defense Attorney Brenna Larkin told the jury Kelly was fearful about people moving across his ranch, and that over the years the people crossing the land turned from family groups to smugglers in camouflage carrying drug loads and rifles. She said Kelly thought someone had fired a shot at him earlier and was shooting in the air to run off the threat without hurting anyone.
She said once he found the dead man’s body he wasn’t trying to dehumanize the victim—rather, she said he was so shocked he couldn't bring himself to describe it.
“He’s scared, he’s in shock. He’s never found a dead body before. He can’t say the words. There is a dead person here. I’m looking at a dead person. That’s hard, very very hard,” said Larkin during opening her statement.
Larkin told the jury investigators misquoted Kelly’s statements to help lock him in as the killer and never really investigated whether anyone else could have been the person who fired that fatal shot.
The trial is expected to last until April 19th.
——-
Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.