Detective: Goshen Massacre suspect confessed to friend
VISALIA, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Noah Beard and Angel Uriarte, the men accused of the Jan. 16 Goshen Massacre that left six dead, made their latest court appearance Monday for a preliminary hearing.
They are charged with six counts of murder.
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At the hearing, witnesses took the stand for the first time, which included multiple detectives who have investigated the shooting first-hand.
As they recounted events, one detective described his interview with Angel Uriarte’s childhood friend and fellow gang member.
He says the man not only identified Beard and Uriarte in surveillance video as the armed men seen entering the Parraz family home, but that the men also knocked on his door the morning of the shooting.
There he says Uriarte made a confession.
“He allowed them into his residence, and it was then that Angel informed him that ‘we shot the people at the trailer,'” said Detective Jose Melendez with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office.
The detective said he also spoke to Uriarte’s mother after the surveillance video was released.
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He says he brought with him a screenshot of the men shown in the video.
“Did you show it to the mother of Angel Uriarte?,” a prosecutor from the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office asked.
“Yes I did,” said Melendez.
“What was her response?” asked the prosecutor.
“Her response was, ‘That’s my son,’ as she cried,” said Detective Melendez.
Detective Don DeAzevedo also took the stand to relive the horrors she found once he arrived on the scene, which included the bodies of 16-year-old Alissa Parraz and her 10-month-old son Nycholas.
He was even asked to narrate the surveillance video captured in court.
“(You can see) Alissa go up to the wooden fence, set down the baby on the other side of the fence, and she’ll jump the chain link and then go back and retrieve her baby from the other side of the fence,” he said. “At about this point is where you see the suspects exit the house and retrieve the rifle out of the pants there and engage,” said Detective DeAzevedo amid cries from family members sitting in the audience.
The preliminary hearing for the murder suspects will continue Tuesday morning.
Following its conclusion, the Tulare County District Attorney will decide whether or not to pursue the death penalty.
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