Jurors view Vergara interview during Saturday court session

GAINESVILLE - The trial of an accused double murderer from Flowery Branch continued into Saturday in Hall County Superior Court, and featured a video tape of a police interview of the defendant which was made shortly after the murders occurred in March 2002.

Jurors listened to and watched the six-year-old interview presented by former Hall County Investigator Ivan Spindola, who is now with the Pendergrass Police Department.

Ignacio Vergara was interviewed by Spindola and other officers on March 26, 2002, shortly after the murders of Alejandro Santana and Francesco Saucedo, who were found shot to death on March 13 on Bragg Road near Flowery Branch.

Vergara is the alleged mastermind behind a plot to set up the two men in a phony drug buy in which Vergara and co-defendant Brigado Soto killed the men and took their supply of cocaine.

Soto has pleaded guilty to being the shooter, and on the tape, played for the jurors on the courtroom video screen, Vergara claimed he was frightened by the incident.

While present during the shootings, he said he turned his face away and did not see Soto shoot the men in their car and also beat one of them.

District Attorney Lee Darragh called Spindola to the stand and then introduced the videotape into evidence.

During the interview Vergara answered the officers' questions in Spanish and jurors read the replies from an English transcript.

The state maintains that while Vergara did not pull the trigger he is guilty because it was his plan to kill Santana and Saucedo and take the cocaine, and is eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/8/212631