The online searches allegedly started shortly after the Instagram post announcing his ex-girlfriend was getting married.
Within 12 hours of seeing it in December 2020, a prosecutor told a jury Monday, Jesse Milton Alvarez found the new man’s home address in North Park.
And within 16 hours, Alvarez searched for information on how to hire a hitman in San Diego, the prosecutor said. She said the following days and weeks brought more searches, including: “how to shoot someone in self-defense” and “how to kill your ex’s fiancee.”
Opening statements and trial testimony began Monday in San Diego Superior Court for Alvarez, who is charged with murder in the death of 37-year-old Mario Fierro. Alvarez, 33, has pleaded not guilty.
Mario Fierro
(Courtesy photo)
Fierro, a teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School, was gunned down as he was preparing to leave for work just after 7 a.m. Feb. 1, 2021.
It was at school where Fierro had met fellow teacher Amy Gembara. More than a year earlier, she had broken up with Alvarez.
What Fierro did not know, Deputy District Attorney Ramona McCarthy said, was that Gembara’s “jealous, obsessive and possessive ex-boyfriend would methodically plot his execution.”
The killing — the prosecution says it was ambush, the defense said it was self-defense — stunned the tight-knit private school in Carmel Valley, where the popular Fierro had also coached sports, including football and track.
McCarthy told the jury that on the morning of the killing, Alvarez dressed in black, grabbed a gun, drove to Fierro’s house and waited. Nearly an hour later, Fierro emerged to leave for work.
Players wear a special patch in honor of slain teacher Mario Fierro.
(Josh DaFoe)
“He had no idea the defendant plotted a surprise attack,” McCarthy said.
A witness driving down Kansas Street spotted two men fighting, McCarthy told the jury. One looked angry, the other looked scared.
Alvarez’s attorney, Kerry Armstrong, said his client will take the stand in his own defense. He told jurors Alvarez will testify that he had gone to Fierro’s home to talk to him, and that when he introduced himself, Fierro became “very, very upset.”
According to Armstrong, a fight followed, and when Alvarez backed away, pulled out a gun and told Fierro to stop, Fierro kept coming at him.
“Mr. Alvarez, fearing for his life, began to shoot,” the defense attorney said.
Fierro was shot six times — his back, his arm and four times in his head.
The attorney said his client is “very religious,” is on the autism spectrum but is high-functioning and had been working toward his master’s degree. He said Alvarez “didn’t understand the social cues of a breakup.”
“I think autism played a large degree in this,” Armstrong said. “He believed it was his role to protect her.”
Gembara, the first witness to take the stand, told jurors she and Alvarez met on a dating app in mid-2015 and dated until she broke it off September 2019.
“I made it very crystal clear. Multiple times,” she testified.
He kept calling. Once, he tried to slip into her apartment, she said. Months later, when she went to Disneyland, he suddenly showed up, she testifed.
She changed her locks. She moved. He continued trying to contact her, according to the prosecutor. Alvarez got a job in the school cafeteria but was escorted off campus when staffers recognized him from a security flyer.
She filed for a restraining order. But the judge rejected it — finding Alvarez had needed time to process and heal — and Alvarez agreed to stay away from Gembara. Two days later, Alvarez tried to connect with her family on social media.
When Alvarez did not stay away, she said, she hired an attorney who sent a letter telling Alvarez to stop contacting her.
In mid-December 2020, Alvarez went to see family in Peru for a few weeks. On Dec. 21, Cathedral Catholic posted the engagement picture of the couple on Instagram.
“From that point forward, the defendant methodically planned his execution,” McCarthy said.
The prosecutor said the defendant searched Gembara’s name 85 times in one day. Other alleged online searches: “what do women do with engagement ring if man dies.”
When he was back from Peru, less than two weeks before the killing, McCarthy said, Alvarez was outside Fierro’s home at 5 a.m., taking pictures of cars and license plates. She said that within 30 minutes, after using a paid online service, Alvarez knew which car belonged to Fierro.
He also took three handgun shooting courses within a few days.
The trial is expected to last roughly two weeks.
