Jun 27, 2008 1:14 pm US/Pacific
Man Guilty Of Murdering Elderly Millbrae Couple
REDWOOD CITY (BCN) ―
After only one full day of deliberations a San Mateo County Superior Court jury found a 54-year-old man guilty this morning of first-degree murder for savagely beating his employers to death in their Millbrae home in 2006.
Joseph George Cua, a part-time resident of both Burlingame and Hemet in Southern California, sat with his lawyers as the jury announced that they found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder as well as a special allegation of multiple murders.
Investor Fernand Wagner, 78, and part-time hairstylist Suzanne Wagner, 68, were found murdered on June 14 in their home. Police discovered their bodies after Suzanne Wagner failed to show up to work that day. Cua was their building manager and had known them for 25 years.
Foreperson Heather Harms and juror Zinta Zarins said the jury had little doubt as to Cua's guilt, and spent most of their time deliberating between first and second-degree murder. They said that by Thursday evening only one person was still debating between the degrees of murder, so they all went home and slept on it to be sure they were positive about their decision.
"There is such a responsibility of it," Harms, a psychiatric nurse, said regarding the decision.
Deputy District Attorney Sean Gallagher said he is thrilled the case has concluded.
"It's been an unbearable two years for the family and I'm just glad that we could be the voice of the victims" and get Cua sentenced, Gallagher added.
Prosecutors believe Cua murdered the couple because they realized he was stealing money from them. From January 2004 to June 2006, when the Wagners were killed, Cua embezzled around $250,000, Gallagher said. A forensic tax expert testified earlier in the trial that Cua was skimming money from renters' monthly checks to pay for his nearly $100,000 in commercial debt that didn't include his home mortgage.
The Wagners owned three buildings, one each in Burlingame, Redwood City and San Jose. Cua was their property manager and collected rent checks from the Burlingame and San Jose properties.
Defense attorney Edward Pomeroy said that Fernand Wagner and Cua had an unusual business relationship that resulted in a financial quagmire. Pomeroy stated that Fernand Wagner was an astute businessman who kept a tight rein over his financial assets, and knew exactly what Cua was keeping as salary.
Gallagher called Cua's actions long-term pervasive embezzlement and said that the motive for the killing was that Fernand Wagner had realized there were discrepancies with his bank account. Without the money he was pilfering from the Wagners Cua would not be able to sustain the lifestyle he had created for himself.
When police entered the home at 623 Lomita Ave. they found the couple dead from blunt force trauma, Gallagher said. Both victims received numerous blows to their head and face, suffering skull fractures and broken jaws. Fernand Wagner was fully dressed, lying face down in the hallway, while Suzanne Wagner was lying face up in the den in only her bra.
"This is about as awful a crime as we get," Gallagher said of the brutal way the couple died.
Cua's DNA was found on Suzanne Wagner's panties and nylons, found near her body, as well as a doorjamb near Fernand Wagner's body and in the Wagners' black Cadillac, found a few miles away in Daly City.
Gallagher said during trial that Cua staged the scene, and attempted to make it look as if Susanne Wagner was sexually assaulted to throw investigators off of the trail of why the couple was really killed.
Zarins said that while quite a bit of the DNA evidence was confusing, there were a few areas where Cua's blood turned up that were compelling in proving his guilt, such as on Suzanne Wagner's panties.
Opened drawers in the home office and a bedroom indicate that someone went through the home either before or after the couple's death. Pomeroy indicated it was another person, who killed the couple after they interrupted a robbery attempt, while Gallagher said Cua did it in a second attempt to hide the real motive for the killing.
Outside court Pomeroy said that he will "look at the full gamut of motions" available to him before deciding whether to appeal the decision.
Pomeroy said DNA was a crucial factor in the case, because while Cua's DNA showed up in a variety of places around the house, there was other DNA in the home that belonged to someone else as well. During his opening and closing statements Pomeroy stated that someone else was in the home at the time of the murder.
Cua did not take the stand because "people aren't used to being witnesses," Pomeroy said. "It's a defense strategy not to put your client on the stand."
Cua's wife, who lived in Hemet with their daughter, told police that her husband returned the day after the murders and the following morning she noticed his right hand was swollen and cut, and his shins and feet were bruised as well. He was arrested in Oxnard in Southern California five days after the couple was killed.
Pomeroy said Cua's wife contacted police out of revenge because she knew about his girlfriend who lived in the Bay Area.
Cua is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 3 at 8:45 a.m.
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