By Angela Ruggiero
East Bay Times
OAKLAND, Calif. — A key witness to the fatal shooting of an off-duty Santa Clara County paramedic in April 2013 gave a description that does not match the defendant standing trial for his murder.
The 79-year-old well-spoken woman was driving to pick up a pizza in the Oakland hills the morning of April 2, 2013, on Keller Avenue when she witnessed what she described as a “living nightmare.”
Quinn Boyer, 34, had just dropped off his father at his Oakland hills home from a doctor’s appointment, and had stopped to use his cell phone when he approached by two teens, one with a gun, in an attempt to rob him, said prosecutor Jimmie Wilson.
Christian Burton, 16 at the time and now 21, and his friend were allegedly trying to carjack Boyer. Prosecutors allege they had gotten out of a car containing four other teen boys, and all six had gone on a crime spree that day.
Burton later confessed to police his involvement in the crime, but his attorney suggests that it was a false confession, and brought in a leading expert to testify.
The case’s only impartial witness says she saw things a little differently than the prosecution’s version. The woman said that she only saw one teen, a boy wearing a tan or brown jacket and white baseball cap, get out of the car. He then shot at a Honda that was driving up Keller Avenue, from the opposite side of the road, she said. But the prosecution claims that the suspect car was on the same side of the road as the victim car, that the victim’s car was parked, and that the shooter shot through the passenger side window of Boyer’s car, shattering the glass.
“I had never seen anyone get shot before, never even seen anyone pull out a gun before in all my 79 years,” the woman said on the witness stand Monday. “This was like a living nightmare.”
After Boyer was shot, he tried to drive away. But the bullet from the .22-caliber pistol hit him on the right side of the head, causing him to crash his car into a tree, and eventually down an embankment. He died two days later.
But the witness said Boyer was not stopped at all, but driving when she saw the teen boy get out of his car in front of her and take a few steps toward the opposite side of the road. He then shot across the median at the moving car Boyer was in. She doesn’t remember Boyer’s car hitting a tree, but hitting the curb of the median, “flying through the air,” and eventually go down the embankment.
The boy wearing a tan jacket and white baseball cap matches the description of another teen boy at the time, Nazhee Flowers, who has since been convicted in adult court of felony carjacking in connection with this case. Burton was wearing a jean vest that day, with a distinctive photo of a friend on the back. Surveillance video from earlier that day at a liquor store and later, surveillance at a Macy’s department store showed images of the teens and what they were wearing.
A point of evidence to the prosecution’s benefit is that Burton confessed his involvement to police. But Ernie Castillo, Burton’s attorney, argued against the reliability of the then-16-year-old’s confession.
On Tuesday morning, the defense brought in an expert witness, Richard Leo, a professor at the University of San Francisco and leading expert on false confessions, to testify. He talked about how police interrogations during investigations can lead to false confessions, sometimes unknowingly.
“No one wants a false confession,” Leo said. “When they occur, they’re typically a product of poor training, or overzealousness.”
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