Opening statements began Tuesday in the Solano County Superior Court trial of a Martinez man charged in two fatal shootings in 2022.
Richard Raymond Klein, 54, dressed in a black suit, listened quietly, occasionally talking with his defense attorney Dustin M. Gordon as Deputy District Attorney Barry Shapiro spent most of the morning outlining for jurors the complex series of events he says led to the shootings.
Using video surveillance videos as well as video and audio recordings of jail phone calls between Klein and others — including one of his alleged victims — Shapiro first outlined events leading up to a confrontation in April 2022 at a home on Manzanita Avenue in Fairfield, that resulted in the shooting death of Anthony Fuimaono, 56.
“You will hear from a neighbor about what he saw and heard and he had a surveillance camera too,” Shapiro told the jurors, saying they would hear Fuimaono shout has he was bleeding and then hear an additional gun shot. And he told jurors they would hear a phone call made two weeks later in which Klein can be heard talking and laughing with another man about the shooting and the fact that he had been grazed in the neck by a bullet.
He said evidence would show that Klein had given the murder weapon to a friend, Matthew Muller, 37, to dispose of and said jurors would hear conversations about a “cereal box,” saying it referred to the weapon.
He explained that while Klein was in jail awaiting trial, he learned that Muller was having an affair with his wife and confronted him about it in a phone call from jail. He played a recording for the jury in which Klein could be heard telling Muller to end the relationship and Muller agreeing to do so.
He also played later recordings after he said Klein learned that the affair had not ended and that he believed Muller was getting into his personal belongings, saying Klein grew increasingly angry and that Muller feared Klein would come after him if he got out of jail.
Shapiro also played recordings in which Klein and others discussed a “barbecue” or a “roast” that preceded an arson of Muller’s home.
Shapiro then played a recorded call from a woman who told him that Muller had told her he “had something” that belonged to Klein, referencing the cereal box. Klein is seen on the video recording visibly stunned and saying it “was not good” and calling it a warning shot from Muller.
Then Shapiro explained to the jurors that in October of 2022, now retired Solano Superior Court Judge Robert Bowers agreed to release Klein without bail, and only required he wear an ankle monitor.
While Klein was out of custody, Muller was shot and killed in an incident caught on surveillance cameras in the 1200 block of Portrero Circle area of Suisun City. Shapiro played a slow motion video of the incident counting shots exchanged between Muller and Klein on the video.
Shapiro also said the jury would hear evidence about Klein removing his ankle monitor after the shooting and making his way south before heading into Mexico where he would later be arrested and brought back to the United States for trial.
Telling the jurors that they will hear from a range of witnesses in the case, “some with criminal records and some without” but that in the end, their decision would be clear. “The accumulation of the evidence all points in one direction — at the defendant,” he said.
Defense attorney Gordon then stood and told the jurors they would need to look at the totality of the evidence and said the videos and recordings are not painting a clear a picture as the prosecution hopes.
“The prosecution is telling you what they expect the evidence to show but based on the cast of characters they will parade in front of you, I’m not sure what you will hear,” he said, saying the stories will to be “straight line.”
He suggested they look carefully at all of the videos, saying they suggest others were present at the crime scenes and he told them to be careful not to “draw conclusions about things you can’t see” on the videos.
“No one is going to come in here and say there were escalating tensions” between Klein and Fuimaono, for example he said, adding that people could be seen laughing and joking before that Fairfield incident.
And he suggested that many of the witnesses should be considered carefully, including one who is testifying in exchange for “consideration” on her own separate criminal cases.
The trial resumes Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. in the courtroom of Solano Superior Court Judge John B. Ellis. It is expected to last at least six weeks.
If convicted at trial for the killings, Klein — who was convicted of a felony in 2006 in Contra Costa County — faces 50 years to life for the murders and likely more time for using firearms and being a previously convicted felon, among other enhancements.
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