Bridgeport murder case heads to jury after week of testimony

BRIDGEPORT — A jury on Tuesday began deliberating in the case of a local man accused of gunning down an acquaintance in a hail of gunfire under the mistaken impression that the victim had set him up to get shot months before. 

Eric Ayala, 27, is charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the March 13, 2021 shooting death of 33-year-old Gregory Ingram in a Seaview Avenue apartment.

Attorneys presented closing arguments to a 12-person jury Tuesday morning following a week of testimony. The trial began May 5 with testimony from Ingram’s girlfriend, who described his last moments following the 2 a.m. shooting, which came after he went to investigate a noise at the back door of the third-floor residence.

With several members of his family watching from the first row of the gallery in Judge Robin Pavia’s third floor courtroom, Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Moran said that Ingram was “in the very wrong place at the very wrong time.”

The prosecutor said Ayala was one of two shooters who unleashed a salvo of at least 25 bullets through the back door of the third-floor apartment, noting police recovered 13 shell casings from a 9mm gun and a dozen from a .40-caliber weapon. She said Ayala was under the mistaken impression that a man named “Johnno” was living at the apartment, which had been rented only days before by Ingram’s girlfriend.

Though Ingram was somehow hit just three times, Moran said, he lived only long enough to stagger toward the front door of the apartment, where he was found dead minutes later by police responding to the scene.

Moran said the firepower at play gave jurors more than ample evidence to show Ayala and the unnamed other shooter had the intent to cause death, a required element of the murder charge.

“This wasn’t one shot. This wasn’t an accident,” she said. “This was a targeted attack. It was the wrong person but the right house. This was intent to kill.”

The prosecutor said Ayala’s guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt by evidence showing his car, his phone and his DNA were at the scene.

She played surveillance video she said showed Ayala’s Ford Five Hundred driving to and from the scene, as well as Ayala trading in his vehicle the next day at a local dealer.

The prosecutor also cited testimony from a FBI special agent who said Ayala’s cellphone was in the area at the time of the shooting, as well as a state forensic lab expert who said Ayala’s DNA was found on a flashlight attachment for a handgun found at the scene.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that is proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Moran said.

Speaking for the defense, Assistant Public Defender Paul Scafariello disagreed, saying that police “blindly focused their efforts” on Ayala, 

“What happened to Mr. Ingram is horrible,” he said. “No one here is defending that. He should not have lost his life that morning.”

At the same time, however, he said that sympathy for the victim should play no part in the jury’s deliberations.

The defense lawyer, who tried the case alongside Assistant Public Defender Kelly Billings, said the police investigation of Ingram’s killing was inadequate, noting that cops swabbed the gun flashlight found at the scene but not other evidence found, “the start of many more failures of the Bridgeport Police Department in this case.”

He challenged the conclusions drawn by the prosecution from surveillance video, saying the state wanted jurors to resort to “guesswork.”

“More questions than answers,” Scafariello said. “That is the theme of the state’s case.”

“It isn’t a crime to go with your brother to sell a car, but the state wants you to believe this is a damning piece of evidence anyway,” he said. “Does it look bad? Sure, there’s no denying it. But there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

Scafariello said the evidence showed that two other men who have since died had used the vehicle to deal drugs, and were the ones who shot Ingram. He cited testimony from a defense witness, Kiano Serrano, who said one of the men, Javier Flores, had confessed to him. The other man, Kelvin Soto, had prior firearm convictions, and his DNA was found on the gun flashlight as well.

While Ayala’s DNA was on the flashlight, he said more of Soto’s was found, and suggested his client’s could have gotten there by transfer. He said the state was “throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks, which it doesn’t.”

During her rebuttal, Moran said the police did investigate other suspects — and ruled them out based on the evidence. 

“To say they didn’t try to investigate these things is simply not true,” she said. “Listen to the testimony if you want to. There was an adequate investigation here. There is a plethora of evidence for you to consider.”

The prosecutor questioned why Serrano, the defense witness who said Flores had confessed to the murder months afterward, sat on the information for nearly five years as Ayala languished in jail awaiting trial, calling the timing, and the testimony, “incredibly suspect.”

“Your common sense comes with you into that deliberation room,” she said. “Does that make sense, or are we just throwing things against the wall?”

Moran also noted that both Flores and Soto were unavailable to testify. Flores died in 2021 and Soto died in 2022.

“It’s convenient they can’t come in and tell their side of the story,” Moran said.