The judge overseeing the murder trial of 75-year-old George Alan Kelly declared a mistrial on Monday after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Mexican illegal immigrant Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea was found dead on Kelly’s 170-acre cattle ranch near Nogales, Arizona, on January 30, 2023, after Kelly reportedly fired warning shots into the air. Cuen-Buitimea was allegedly unarmed at the time of his death, though Kelly’s defense attorneys suggested that he may have been involved in criminal, cartel activity, which is prevalent in the region. Despite little information at the time proving Kelly’s culpability, he was held in jail on a sizable $1 million bond for several weeks on first-degree murder charges.
Describing Cuen-Buitimea’s history during her closing arguments to the jury on Thursday, Kelly’s defense attorney Brenna Larkin said, “Long story short, this is simply not somebody who’s looking for the American dream. There’s no evidence that this person is here for those kinds of benign purposes.”
“[W]e bring that up, not, you know, to be judgmental about Gabriel or to not have compassion for him. But when people are involved in a criminal lifestyle, it’s dangerous. It’s more inherently dangerous than simply being a migrant who’s coming here. So it’s relevant for that reason,” she added.
According to court records, 48-year-old Cuen-Buitimea had previously illegally entered the U.S. after being deported multiple times. His most recent deportation was in 2016. The Mexican national lived south of the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Mexico.
Jurors in the trial had deliberated for 15 hours when Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink called the mistrial on Monday. A status hearing has been scheduled for Monday, April 29, to determine whether or not the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office will retry the case.
Kelly’s wife, Wanda, testified during the trial that the couple had seen two men carrying rifles and backpacks and dressed in camouflage approximately 100 feet away from their home, according to Fox News. Kelly’s wife said that she called their Border Patrol ranch liaison after spotting the men on their property. Kelly’s defense maintained that the Arizona rancher had only fired warning shots into the air from his patio, and suggested that a gang or members of a cartel may have killed the migrant and robbed him. Fox reported that “hours passed before Kelly called Border Patrol again to report finding the body.”
Prosecutors argued that it was the rancher’s warning shots that killed Cuen-Buitimea, though the fatal bullet was never recovered, making it nearly impossible to determine what kind of gun was used to kill Cuen-Buitimea.
“The law does not say that you cannot use lesser force to defend yourself … This is not downtown Nogales. This is not a populated area. This is isolated. It is empty,” Larkin said to the jury. “He can fire warning shots to protect himself and to protect his wife. And that’s exactly what he did. That’s exactly what any man who cares about his wife and his home should do in this situation when faced with the threat that he was faced with.”
