GARLAND, Texas — Richard Acosta Jr., accused of capital murder for his alleged involvement in the murder of three teenagers in Garland more than a year ago, took the stand in his own defense in Dallas County Criminal Court on Thursday insisting he had no knowledge, before or after, what his son Abel planned to do.
“Did you see the firearm?” his defense attorney Heath Harris asked when Acosta took the witness stand.
“No,” he said. “I would have tried to do something. I would have tried to stop any situation if he was going to try to harm somebody.”
Abel Acosta is still on the run after the Dec. 26, 2021 shooting that claimed the lives of 17-year-old Rafael Garcia, 16-year-old Ivan Noyola and 14-year-old Xavier Gonzalez.
Acosta, responding to questions by his own attorney, told the jury his version of events of that night. He said that after a day of running errands, including taking his son Abel to two different shopping malls, he stopped to get Tylenol for his wife at the convenience store.
He said she suffered a miscarriage that previous November and wanted the pain medication for continued abdominal pains. He says that’s why he first appears on surveillance video entering the convenience store alone.
His son Abel, he said, noticed teenagers he knew in the store and said he was going to confront them to ask about a necklace of his that had been stolen.
Acosta said his son was so eager to jump out of the moving truck that he reached back to grab him. His son, he said, agitated, wrestled out of the t-shirt and got out.
Surveillance video shows Abel next sneaking to the front door, shirtless, but wearing a hat and a blue surgical mask. Acosta says he heard multiple gunshots next and then saw Abel running back to the truck.
“He opens that back door and said ‘get out of here, somebody’s shooting. Get me out of here,'” Acosta said his son said. Prosecutors showed that Acosta never took the truck out of park, kept his foot on the brake, and then sped away when his son jumped in the driver's side back door.
Acosta claimed his son never told him what happened, that he himself never chose to call 911 about the 20 shots he heard, and that he didn’t press the issue when they got home.
“He was just real agitated and hostile, a caged animal in the room pacing back and forth. I just tried to ease off of him. Maybe for 30 minutes to calm down and he would tell me," said Acosta.
But he said that his son, with a history of running away, was gone when he went to check on him in his room an hour later.
“No, sir,” he said when his attorney asked if he knew where his son is. “I want him to turn himself in. We don’t know if he’s alive or if he’s breathing or anything. Nobody knows.”
“I have no idea why he had a gun. In his other secret life, I had no idea what was going on.”
And, as for the families who lost their three sons that day, Acosta said he considers himself a victim, too.
“It’s the most horrible thing. I can’t even imagine how the families feel. We all lost our sons that day. I’ll never get to see my son again,” he said.
Prosecutors grilled him, however, about how he could have possibly not known about the gun. His son was wearing baggy basketball shorts and the gun had a large clip.
“You are expecting this jury to believe that your 14-year-old son, wearing flimsy basketball shorts was somehow able to conceal this gun with that extended clip and you never saw it,” prosecutor Stephanie Fargo asked him.
“I never saw him with a weapon ma’am,” Acosta said.
Prosecutors allege that Acosta was a party to the triple-murder, encouraging his son to act and helping conceal him from arrest.
Testimony in the capital murder trial continues on Friday.