Witnesses tell jury surveillance footage and family accounts put Marco Moreno Vazquez’s vehicle at shooting scene

Roxanna Martinez, 17, the defendant’s daughter, told jurors on Feb. 16, 2023, that she saw a confrontation in which her father and another man exited a vehicle and shots were fired; she testified, “He shot twice,” and said she saw the other man fire several times.

The account was part of direct testimony and documentary evidence the state introduced in the 187th District Court in Bexar County. Cynthia Cortez, a Bexar County resident who owns four home surveillance cameras, authenticated footage and stills admitted as state exhibits 79–82 and said detectives collected her memory card a few days after the incident.

Why it matters: The combination of live eyewitness testimony and authenticated surveillance footage is central to the state’s case, which aims to show who was present at the scene and which vehicle was involved. A separate witness, Juan Carlos Ortega, testified he sold a Chevy Suburban to Marco Moreno Vazquez in October 2022, corroborating the state’s evidence tying a particular vehicle to the defendant.

Prosecutors played multiple clips from a camera facing Winsford Drive and asked a resident-witness (who provided answers through a court interpreter) to identify people and a white pickup truck captured on the video. That witness said she recognized “Marco” in the footage and confirmed the camera’s placement on the side of her house.

Cynthia Cortez testified the front-door camera recorded motion-activated footage, that it recorded both day and night (switching to night vision when necessary), and that the date-and-time stamps in the footage are consistent with the Feb. 16, 2023 incident. Defense counsel cross-examined Cortez to highlight limits of the camera’s field of view at night, including whether license plates or driver faces would be discernible.

On cross-examination of family and neighbor witnesses, defense counsel questioned where the victim (referred to in testimony as “Dunel”/“Cubano”) was located — inside by a pool table area or outside in a yard — and why emergency services were not called immediately. The resident witness said she called a tenant (Lorraine) who speaks English to contact police because she believed calling through Spanish would be slower; she later found a spent shell casing in her son’s closet days after police had processed the scene and turned the home back to the family.

Roxanna Martinez described leaving the shooting scene with family members, packing belongings at her parents’ direction and traveling to Austin; she testified she saw her father and the other man exchange words before shots were fired and that, after the shooting, her father and the other man returned to the vehicle and left.

Juan Carlos Ortega testified he sold the Chevy Suburban to Moreno on Oct. 5, 2022, producing a written agreement that the prosecutor introduced into evidence; he confirmed the defendant still had the vehicle in February 2023.

The judge recessed court early because of weather and reminded jurors not to research the case or visit addresses mentioned in testimony. The trial is scheduled to resume the next day at 1:30 p.m.

The court record from the Feb. 16 session includes authenticated video and still-image exhibits, live eyewitness accounts from a neighbor and a family member, and documentary evidence of a vehicle sale. Defense counsel focused on line-of-sight, lighting and timing to challenge identifications and the completeness of the surveillance evidence.

Next steps: The trial will continue at the time set by the court; further testimony and cross-examination are expected when proceedings resume.