SAN DIEGO — The man charged with murdering a Cathedral Catholic High School teacher took the witness stand in his own defense Wednesday.
Jesse Alvarez testified he shot the teacher in self defense following an “altercation” in North Park.
Alvarez, 33, started out on the witness stand telling the jury he was autistic and obsessive compulsive.
“I do have some kind of mental disability,” he testified.
He said he met Amy Gembara, who was a teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School in Carmel Valley, on a dating app.
“On our first date, that first week of June 2015, I invited her to a concert and I picked her up in my car and brought her some red roses,” Alvarez testified.
The couple dated on and off for years, and Alvarez said he was heartbroken when they broke up in 2019.
Then in 2020, Alvarez noticed a post on the Cathedral Catholic Facebook page announcing Gembara’s engagement to another teacher at the high school, Mario Fierro.
“I was super shocked because I didn't even know she was in a relationship, much less getting engaged,” he testified.
For months, Alvarez said he obsessed about the engagement and fantasized about killing Fierro, googling search terms like, “How to kill your ex's fiancé" and "How to kill someone with a handgun."
On the morning of February 1, 2021, Alvarez drove to Fierro's home in North Park and shot him, he says, in self-defense.
“That day February 1, 2021 was the most traumatic day of my life. I almost died. I had a very regretful altercation. And I also was arrested in a very violent fashion,” Alvarez told the jury.
The defendant claimed he was going to North Part to meet Fierro, not murder him.
“My dad has always taught me from a young age that, you know, talking face to face is the best,” Alvarez testified. “And so I just decided that for all those reasons that I would just catch up with him on his way to work and just talk to him for a little bit.”
Alvarez is expected to detail his version of the “altercation” when he resumes testimony in court at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Deputy District Attorney Ramona McCarthy will then have a chance to cross examine the defendant.
Prosecutors allege Alvarez was lying in wait when he murdered Fierro in cold blood. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
WATCH RELATED: Mother testifies at son’s murder trial: ‘I told him to stop pursuing her’