Dec 19, 2007 8:28 pm US/Mountain
2 Accused In Death Were Reenacting 'Mortal Kombat'
GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4/AP) ―
Two teens accused of trying to imitate the "Mortal Kombat" video game have been charged in the death of the 7-year-old half-sister of one of the teens.
Lamar Roberts, 17 of Westminster, and Heather Trujillo, 16 of Johnstown, were arrested Tuesday night. Both were charged as adults in the case.
Johnstown police responded to a home Dec. 6 and found Zoe Garcia, 7, not breathing. Garcia was taken to North Colorado Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.
The teens were baby-sitting Garcia, Trujillo's half-sister, on Dec. 6 while the sisters' mother, Dana Trujillo, 30, was at work. A phone number for the Trujillos could not be found. Court documents say the teens began wrestling, supposedly playing "Mortal Kombat."
Zoe lost consciousness after being hit, kicked, and body-slammed to the floor, an affidavit said. She also stopped breathing.
Trujillo and Roberts tried reviving Zoe under running water and attempted CPR before calling the sisters' mother and then 911, according to affidavits.
Roberts told police he was downstairs playing video games while the sisters wrestled upstairs, but a witness quoted in the affidavit said Roberts told her he had kicked the girl.
"I just want my older daughter to come clean and tell the truth about what happened," Garcia's mother Dana Trujillo said. "She's protecting her boyfriend."
The witness told police that Roberts said Zoe had told them to stop wrestling. According to the affidavit, when the witness asked why they didn't stop, he responded, "I don't know, I was drunk."
According to the autopsy, Garcia died from blunt force trauma.
"What I've been told is that it was all in play," Dana said. "But you don't play like that, resulting in somebody's death."
Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck won't discuss details of the case, but said the decision to charge teenagers as adults often depends on how much remorse they show, and how honest they are with police.
"The level of violence and the level of remorse and other factors all go into making a judgment like this," Buck said.
Roberts and Trujillo are currently being held in the Weld County Jail awaiting their first court appearance.
If convicted, they each face up to 48 years in prison.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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