Prosecutors in a Florida courtroom, realizing it would be more convincing to show jurors how a murder may have taken place rather than just tell them, reassembled the queen-size bed on which they say Adam Crespo murdered his live-in girlfriend, Silvia Galva, in Hallandale Beach in 2019.
Crespo, now 49, initially told police that he and Galva had gotten into an argument after a night out and he was trying to drag her off his bed when she grabbed onto a spear with a 12-inch blade. As he continued to pull, he said, he heard the spear snap — when he turned around, the blade of the spear was in Galva’s chest. He pulled it out, he said, hoping the injury was “not too bad.”
Jurors heard that interview late Tuesday and on Wednesday morning as Assistant State Attorney Jaclyn Broudy questioned expert witness Thomas Hill, who specializes in crime scene investigation and reconstruction.
Broudy and Hill attempted to reenact scenarios based on the accounts Crespo gave to a detective when he was first questioned. None of the demonstrations ended with the spear in a position to cause a fatal injury.
“The spear never did invert,” Hill said. “It always ended up away from the victim.”
The bed itself was introduced as evidence over a defense objection. Defense lawyer Christopher O’Toole argued that assembling the bed in the courtroom would be unfair because it is on a different surface than it was in their bedroom. He also accused Hill of changing his testimony from earlier sworn interviews.
“He gave several different opinions than were in his report,” O’Toole said.
Broward Circuit Judge Andrew Siegel allowed prosecutors to enter the bed into evidence and later denied a defense motion for a mistrial after the demonstration.
Crespo has a martial arts background and a collections of swords and blades that were displayed in the home he and Galva shared, according to an earlier witness and crime scene photos.
He is charged with second-degree murder and, if convicted, would face between 25 years to life in prison.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457. Follow him on Threads.net/@rafael.olmeda.
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