The accused murderer of a man whose body was found in pieces along Mililani Memorial Park Road is expected to tell a jury that he dismembered the victim’s remains but did not kill him.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the state court murder trial of Bryan Suitt, 47, for the September 2013 murder of 34-year-old Alex Gonzales.
"The fact that Mr. Suitt dismembered the body, we’re not contesting that," defense lawyer Lee Hayakawa said in pretrial hearings this month
"There’s no theory that Gonzales was still alive while his body was being dismembered," he added. "It was postmortem."
Hayakawa told Circuit Judge Karen Ahn that should Suitt take the witness stand in his own defense, he can identify others who had motive and could have killed Gonzales.
Suitt is not required to tell the court whether he intends to testify until he presents his defense.
On Sept. 15 and 16, 2013, Honolulu police found Gonzales’ remains in trash bags along Mililani Memorial Park Road and buried in a shallow grave. Police said they also found flesh in a hard-shell suitcase that Suitt purchased from the Walmart Keeaumoku store.
Hayakawa said in pretrial proceedings that authorities can’t pin the murder on Suitt because they can’t even say when Gonzales died.
The indictment charging Suitt alleges he killed Gonzales between Aug. 17, 2013, and mid-September — a window between the time police say Suitt started renting an apartment on the 11th floor of Wailana at Waikiki and when Gonzales’ remains were discovered.
However, information police used to secure several search warrants, including the one for the Waikiki apartment, suggested Gonzales died in early September.
A former roommate told police he last saw and spoke to Gonzales between Sept. 2 and Sept. 5, once when Gonzales was with a man matching Suitt’s description and another time when Gonzales was downstairs at the Wailana.
Deputy Prosecutor Scott Bell told Ahn that according to Alaska Airlines records, Suitt flew from San Diego to Honolulu on Sept. 8 and returned to San Diego on Sept. 17. He did not say whether police have records indicating when Suitt left Honolulu after he started renting at Wailana in August. He also said testimony from an insect expert will help pinpoint when Gonzales died.
Forensic entomologists calculate the time of death by the types of maggots and other bugs on the body. One of the most prominent forensic entomologists in the country is Lee Goff, a professor emeritus at Chaminade University.
Bell said he plans to show the jury images of Gonzales’ remains that were photographed by police, the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office and the Central Identification Laboratory, which helps identify remains of Americans recovered from foreign battlefields and crash sites.
He said the photographs show distinctive tattoos that helped police identify Gonzales. He said the photographs also show the condition of the body.
"Namely, that it was in seven parts and there were 55 separate stab wounds," Bell said.
The medical examiner says the stab wounds were the cause of death.
Bell also told Ahn he intends to present to jurors a saw that the state believes is the same model as the one used to dismember Gonzales’ remains.
When police searched Suitt’s Waikiki apartment in October 2013, Bell said they found a Walmart Keeaumoku store receipt for a purchase made on Sept. 8, seven days before the discovery of Gonzales’ body. He said based on store sales records and surveillance video, police determined that Suitt purchased a Fiskars 21-inch bow saw.
Using the same stock number and UPC, Bell said Honolulu police purchased an identical saw and gave it to a forensic anthropologist at JPAC. The forensic anthropologist said she used the saw to make sample cut marks to compare with those on Gonzales’ remains.
Police said the search of the apartment also revealed that portions of the carpet in the bedroom and near the kitchen appeared to have been removed and that the walls appeared to have been recently painted.
Hayakawa said that because Suitt is conceding that he dismembered Gonzales’ remains and is not disputing the manner or cause of death, showing gruesome autopsy pictures to the jury is not relevant and will only engender hostility toward Suitt.
Ahn said that while many of the pictures are very gruesome, the state still needs to prove its case and has the right to show where the remains were found, how they were positioned and what injuries they had. She rejected some of the photographs Bell presented and directed him to crop others that she did approve to remove portions she feels are disturbing and not necessary for the state to make its case.
Suitt can change his defense — that he can identify others who have motive and could have killed Gonzales — and can present other arguments based on whatever evidence the state presents. It’s uncertain at this point why he would have dismembered the body of a man he claims he did not kill.
When Suitt asked another state judge in December for a mental fitness examination, Hayakawa said Suitt had no intention of using an insanity defense. That same judge later found Suitt fit to stand trial after two of the three mental health experts he appointed to examine Suitt reported that when they went to speak to him at the Hawaii State Hospital, Suitt pretended to be in a catatonic state. The hospital’s staff psychiatrist also reported to the court that Suitt was faking mental illness.
The judge scheduled trial for Aug. 3. However, one week before the trial date, Hayakawa told Ahn he needed more time to prepare because he was pursuing a possible self-defense argument. He said he needed to consult an expert on the effects of certain drugs on a person.
Bell told Ahn, when asked, that Gonzales’ autopsy showed the presence of cocaine. He also said it showed other drugs, which he declined to reveal in open court since the autopsy report is sealed.
