NOGALES — A jury was unable to reach a verdict Friday afternoon in the trial of a Nogales-area rancher accused of killing an unarmed migrant as he crossed his 170-acre property.
After 10 hours of deliberations, the jurors wrote Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink a letter asking that the jury be dismissed and reconsidered Monday morning because they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
When the jury said they had not yet reached a verdict, Judge Fink instructed them to continue deliberating, noting that the jury had not done enough work in a four-week trial dealing with “complex information.” Judge Fink said he had a responsibility to see that the jury did its job.
“I have no intention or desire to enforce a sentence. We are simply responding to a clear need for your help. If there is a possibility that a sentence can be reached as a result of this process, then we should consider doing so,” he said in a memo to jurors.
Ranch owner George Alan Kelly, 75, is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the death of Gabriel Quyen Buitimea and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for endangering Daniel Ramirez as they crossed his 170-acre ranch near the international border.
Vuitimea and Ramirez were in the US looking for work. Both were in the US illegally and were fleeing extreme poverty. On January 30, 2023, Vuitimea was shot and killed as they travelled south towards Mexico trying to evade US Border Patrol.
His body was found 115 yards from Kelly's home a few hours after the shooting.
Kelly's defense lawyers argued that Kelly saw a group of armed migrants and fired a shot into the air as a warning. Prosecutors said Kelly hit Vuitimere with a barrage of bullets. Shell casings were found near the compound, but no bullets were recovered.
The prosecution, led by the Santa Cruz County Attorney's Office, argued that Kelly, armed with an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle, opened fire on two unarmed men. Kelly's defense argued that his testimony was altered by law enforcement and that the investigation into the shooting was biased.
Ramirez, the prosecution's star witness last year, gave dramatic testimony at a preliminary hearing in February, re-enacting the scene in which Kelly allegedly shot and killed Gabriel Kueng Buitimea on Jan. 30. It was later revealed that he had pleaded guilty to smuggling marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border in 2015.
The defense questioned Ramirez's testimony, pointing out inconsistencies in his story, while the prosecution argued he knew details of people who were at the crime scene.
During the trial, the defense argued that Vuitimere could have been the victim of another crime, such as a robbery, but investigators never found any evidence that the group crossed Kelly's land that day.
