Possible cell phone video could show evidence of sexual abuse in Huntsman case

UPDATE 12/20/2017 5:40 p.m.: A possible twist in the case involving the Salinas couple accused of abusing and killing two children two years ago.

Both Tami Huntsman and Gonzalo Curiel were back in court on Wednesday for what was supposed to be a hearing about possibly delaying the trial. But there was a bombshell of sorts when attorneys brought up cell phones and what they may contain.

Huntsman and Curiel are accused of abusing and killing two children under Huntsman’s care, six year old Shaun and three year old Delylah Tara. The children’s bodies were allegedly left in a plastic bin in a storage facility in Redding. The couple are also accused of abusing the children’s older sister who was found in a car, starving with dislocated limbs.

When authorities first searched Huntsman’s car, they found both her and Curiel’s cell phones. During another search, cell phones were found in a backpack in the car.

In court on Wednesday, Huntsman’s attorney implied the phones belonged to Curiel and that they could contain damning evidence against Curiel.

“We believe the documents, the phones, may contain videos showing the interaction between Mr. Curiel and the victims in this case, including abuse of a physical and sexual nature. We believe they may contain evidence of Mr. Curiel’s drug use. We believe that there are notes between Ms. Huntsman and Mr. Curiel that would maintain on the phone that would document her reaction to certain actions taken by Mr. Curiel with regard to those two children.”

However getting access to the phones has been difficult.

Prosecutors say they have repeatedly offered to crack the phones and share the evidence but need consent from the phone’s owners. They don’t know who the phones belong to and Curiel’s attorney, Arthur Dudley, would not consent to any phones that may belong to his client.

“They were inside a backpack inside a car and they had been moving and so their car had been filled with tons of stuff, old stuff, new stuff, stuff that belonged to her husband, stuff that belonged to her children, so it’s impossible to know whose stuff all that is,” said Steve Somers with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.

Investigators could seek a search warrant for the phone, but they need to prove probable cause, defined as “a strong suspicion that evidence relevant to the case will be found in that location.” However, because they don’t know who the phone belongs to, they don’t know if there’s evidence related to the search.

While this is going on, Curiel’s attorney is pushing to suppress evidence found in that Redding storage locker, where the remains of Shaun and Delylah Tara were found. Prosecutors plan to submit a list of witnesses expected to testify at the hearing, slated for January 8.

“Each of the witnesses in the chain that led us to that storage locker and gave us probable cause to get a search warrant to go into that storage locker and the reasons why police actually entered the storage locker before they had the search warrant, we’ll put that information onto why that was done as well,” Somers said.

Another hearing on January 10 will decide when the trial will actually begin. This week marks two years since the start of the case and prosecutors have pushed to get it through trial as fast as possible. Somers said he has lost two witnesses so far, one died of cancer, and the other had a stroke and cannot testify.

Another reason to get the trial moving forward is because of the children they plan to testify.

“We have three children, maybe four children actually, four children we wish to have testify, including the little girl who was the victim of much of the crimes and it is imperative that we get this over with because her doctors have said the healing we’re doing, the last two years of healing that we’ve had both physically and in some ways more important the emotional and mental health healing that she’s been going through, we’re going to undo a lot of that. So they want this done soon so that they can go back and fix what we do because she is going to have to relive these things and it’s hard. It would be hard for an adult, it’s going to be hard for an 11 year old girl,” Somers said.

ORIGINAL POST: A bombshell was revealed in court Wednesday as the Salinas couple accused of killing two children stood before a judge. Cell phones were found in Tami Huntsman’s car and the issue at hand is what they may contain on them.

Wednesday was Gonzalo Curiel’s first hearing back in Monterey County Superior Court after a juvenile court judge ruled he would face charges as an adult. He and Tami Huntsman are accused of abusing and killing 6-year-old Shaun and 3-year-old Delylah Tara, then dumping their bodies in a storage facility in Redding. They’re also accused of abusing the children’s older sister who was found in a car, starving with broken bones.

When authorities first searched Huntsman’s car they found both her and Curiel’s phones. During another search, cell phones were found in a backpack in the car. Huntsman’s attorney alleges the phones could contain videos of Curiel physically and sexually abusing the children, Curiel’s drug use and Huntsman’s reactions. However, prosecutors don’t actually know who the phones belong to.

“They were inside a backpack inside a car and they had been moving and so their car had been filled with tons of stuff, old stuff, new stuff, stuff that belonged to her husband, or I guess her ex-husband, or I guess he was current at the time, stuff that belonged to her children, so it’s impossible to know whose stuff all that is,” said Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, Steve Somers.

To get into those phones, investigators need probable cause to get a search warrant but since they don’t know who the phones belong to, they don’t know if there’s evidence related to the case. Another way to get into the phones would be to get consent from whoever owns them. Curiel’s attorney said he would not consent to any phones that may be his phones.

While this is being sorted out another issue is coming into play. Curiel’s attorneys are pushing to suppress evidence found in that storage locker that would include the remains of the Tara children. That will be heard in court on January 8th.