Trial begins again for man accused of stalking and killing UTA grad student

A Dallas County murder was reset for Tuesday morning for Jorge Esparza, the man accused of stalking and killing his romantic rival.

Esparza entered a not-guilty plea for the shooting death of Ricardo Medina-Madriz in August 2020.

Day one of testimony began with jurors hearing from the woman at the center of the case.

This is a re-set of the case. Back in April, as the trial got underway, the judge recused herself from cases against Esparza after she made comments about the case while the court was in recess.

Her comments were made while court proceedings were being live-streamed on YouTube.

On Tuesday morning, Denise, the woman Esparza was in love with, spoke about her intimate and non-exclusive relationship with the defendant. Denise had just returned home from a date with Medina-Madriz on August 9, 2020.

Medina-Madriz, a registered nurse and graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, was shot and killed near Denise’s home in South Dallas on Jeffries Street.

Esparza is also accused of stalking. While Esparza and Denise had not been dating for months before the shooting, Esparza admitted during his interrogation with Dallas Police to creating at least 10 Instagram accounts to contact her.

“It's weird 'cause she'll talk to me. But once I ask her about why don't we go somewhere, like, go on a date or whatever, that's when she blocks me,” Esparza said in the interrogation video.

In court, jurors were also shown the moment Esparza confessed to shooting Medina-Madriz just days after the shooting.

“Did you shoot him,” the detective asked Esparza.

“Yes,” Esparza said.

“How many times did you shoot him, George,” the detective asked.

“I wanna say three,” Esparza said.

Esparza’s lawyers questioned the interrogation video as only one shell casing was found at the scene. Esparza entered a not-guilty plea and, on Tuesday, told the jury he was confused on the day of the interrogation.

“I told him something he wanted to hear because, again, I was confused about a lot of stuff,” Esparza said in court.

Esparza claimed he drove to Denise’s home; however, he never meant to hurt anyone.

“August 9 is, I was actually supposed to kill myself that night,” Esparza said. “At some point, I do go to Denise's house, because I wanted to apologize for everything.”

Testimony is set to continue on Wednesday morning.