Two eyewitnesses to a 1997 homicide testified through their Grand Jury transcripts in a trial before DC Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman on March 23.
Oscar Diaz-Romero, 47, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder for his alleged involvement in the fatal shooting of Jose Noel Coreas-Carcaro, 22, and Jose Molina, 27, in a restaurant on the 2400 block of 18th Street, NW, on Aug. 9, 1997. After the shooting, Diaz-Romero left the United States and traveled to El Salvador, where he was extradited from in January 2025.
The defense called two witnesses, who could not be present, but jurors heard their testimony from a Grand Jury transcript from Sept. 8, 1997. Diaz-Romero’s attorney Julie Swaney, read the prosecutor’s questions from the Grand Jury while her colleague read the witnesses’ answers.
Both were eyewitness testimonies from friends of the Coreas-Carcaro and Molina.
The first eyewitness revealed that he was with Coreas-Carcaro and Molina on the night of the incident. At that time, members of another group were, “looking at us with unfriendly eyes,” said the witness. According to the eyewitness, there was substantial fighting among the groups, and he said the other group “surrounded us.”
The second eyewitness described the shooter as a short, heavyset man with a “little beard.”
The prosecution called a detective from the Homicide Branch of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) who helped obtain a handwriting sample from Diaz-Romero. The detective told the court that they are fluent in Spanish.
The prosecutors showed letters from 1997 and the detective compared them to Diaz-Romero’s handwriting samples from 2025. According to the detective, the letters had similar misspellings to the sample from the defendant.
According to Diaz-Romero’s arrest warrant, MPD found the letters at the defendant’s residence in 1997. In the letters, an inmate at a Virginia correctional institution allegedly told Diaz-Romero to “get rid of the gun” and stated “killing someone is crazy.”
On the cross-examination, Swaney asked the detective if he was a handwriting expert, in which he said no. She also asked him if it is common for words to be misspelled in Spanish, in which he said “ [he] has seen that before.”
The prosecution also called a retired medical examiner to the stand who has performed over 20,000 autopsies and has been an expert witness in court over 700 times.
The medical examiner demonstrated to the jury how Molina’s wounds reflected that he was turning away from the shooter, as indicated by the “wedge shaped injury pointing towards the body.” They also confirmed that the cause of death for both victims was excessive blood loss, due to gunshot, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
On cross-examination, Diaz-Romero’s other attorney, Destiny Fullwood-Singh confirmed that the medical examiner’s demonstration did not account for the distance between the victim and the shooter.
Parties are set to reconvene on March 24.
