Pushing DNA, other-man theories

By GEORGE B. SANCHEZ

Herald Salinas Bureau

William Tyquiengco may have been one of the last people to see Monterey travel agent Starr Mooren alive, but he didn't kill her, according to Deputy Public Defender Juliet Peck.

DNA evidence shows only that he had sex with Mooren, Peck says, and there is no evidence to support the theory that he stabbed her to death.

"William Tyquiengco is a cheater, not a murderer," Peck said in her opening statement.

The coroner who examined Mooren's body told the jury there were no signs of rape or physical trauma.

Tyquiengco testified that he lied to police and investigators about his six-month affair with Mooren and his whereabouts the night she was found dead because he was afraid of the consequences of his infidelity.

Tyquiengco was married to Starr Mooren's sister Jodi at the time.

Peck has shifted the focus away from her client to Carl Jacobs, a jealous ex-boyfriend of Starr Mooren with a history of violence. A St. Louis medical examiner testified that Mooren's wounds matched the way Jacobs, a wild pig hunter, described killing pigs.

Jacobs was initially a lead suspect in the case, but Peck said police "turned their back on the mountain of evidence incriminating Carl Jacobs" because his DNA didn't match that found at the crime scene. Without any witnesses to corroborate her theory, Peck contends that after Mooren and Tyquiengco had sex on Dec. 12, 1996, Jacobs arrived and killed Mooren.

The DNA evidence that the prosecution says is proof of Tyquiengco's guilt is only proof of sex between consenting adults, says Peck. She has argued that investigators were driven by a "fundamentally flawed assumption" and have made their facts fit the case against Tyquiengco.

"From the very beginning, police assumed this was a sexual assault," Peck said.

To further erode the prosecution's case against her client, Peck uncovered an affair between one-time lead detective Steve McMahon and Tyquiengco's estranged wife, Jodi Mooren.