Trial begins for ex-FBI agent accused of killing son’s girlfriend with hammer

By Dave Toplikar

Published Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010 | 2:09 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010 | 6:06 p.m.

The issue is was it self defense or murder?

"This is not a who-done-it ," Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancario Pesci told a Clark County District Court jury late Tuesday afternoon in opening arguments for the murder trial of Edward A. Preciado-Nuno, a retired San Diego FBI special agent.

The 63-year-old former Marine and 25-year FBI agent has freely admitted he repeatedly struck his son's girlfriend, Kimberly Long, with a hammer in the head in a bloody fight two years ago in a Las Vegas home, Pesci told the Clark County District Court jury.

Pesci showed the jury a gruesome autopsy photo of Long's head. It showed 13 places where Preciado-Nuno had hit her with a claw hammer.

Pesci also showed the jurors photos of cuts and bruises from the hammer marks on her arm, plus an X-ray that showed her arm had been broken. There were 34 areas of injury on her body, he said.

All the evidence will show that she was trying to defend herself, Pesci said.

However, defense attorney Tom Pitaro painted a different picture of what happened during the morning of Nov. 13, 2008, at the home at 8790 Ashley Park Ave.

Pitaro told the jury that Preciado-Nuno, who was trying to help his son, Jeffrey, legally evict Long from the house, was first attacked by Long with a hammer in the garage. Pitaro showed a photo of blood covering much of Preciado-Nuno's face.

Pitaro said that Long, who was physically larger than Preciado-Nuno, had struck him with a hammer first, knocking him down.

Preciado-Nuno, who was trying to defuse a turbulent "toxic" relationship between his son and Long, knew that Long had "a history of aggressive, out of control behavior" against his son and others and believed that Long would try to kill him, Pitaro said. She hit him six times with the hammer, Pitaro said.

So Preciado-Nuno picked up a different hammer and began defending himself, Pitaro said.

"He knew he was in a fight for his life," Pitaro said.

Preciado-Nuno, who also goes by Ed Preciado, has been charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon in Long's death. He is currently out of custody on $250,000 bail and is under house arrest.

After opening arguments, Judge Donald Mosley dismissed the jury for the day and told them the trial would resume at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Mosley told jurors that the trial could last one to two weeks.

According to a police report, Long and Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno had been a couple for about five years and had an infant son together. But they had had a somewhat turbulent relationship that that in the past resulted in arrests for both of them, police said.

Their last confrontation took place on Nov. 9, 2008. On that date, Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno had locked Long out of their residence after she had been out partying for two days and had not been home, police said.

As she called police from her mobile phone to try to get in, Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno came outside and tried to stop her, police said. She punched him in the nose and the eye, and he pushed her against some toys and she fell to the ground, police said.

However, when officers arrived, the couple told them their fight was only verbal and they had not touched each other.

Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno then called his father, a retired FBI agent and longtime law enforcement officer, asking for help and advice on how to break off the relationship and evict Long from the home, according to testimony at the preliminary hearing.

Edward Preciado-Nuno left his home in San Diego and got a room at the South Point Hotel and Casino, police said. He had his son spend the night with him there, then began working for the next few days with his son to take legal steps and get documentation to evict Long from the house.

He also videotaped the condition of the house, advised his son to complete a voluntary statement and sent him to St. Rose Dominican Hospitals San Martin campus to document his nose and eye injuries from where Long had punched him.

Edward Preciado-Nuno then wanted to confront Long with all the documentation he was gathering and secretly videotape her response in hopes she would say something incriminating. Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno then helped his father place a video camera on a shelf on the west wall of the garage, the police report said.

While Long was at work on the night of Nov. 12, 2008, both men were at the home with Long's 9-year-old son from another marriage and the couple's infant son.

Between 11 p.m. and midnight, the father sent his son to their hotel room at the South Point, saying he didn't want Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno at the home when Long returned home from her night job at 4:30 a.m., police said.

The son told police started receiving phone calls from Long about 5 a.m. He also spoke on his phone with his father and a couple of more times with Long until about 5:30 a.m., police said.

According to the police report, Edward Preciado-Nuno called his son about 6 a.m. and said Long was attacking him with a hammer and to call 911. When officers arrived at the residence, they found the garage door was open.

Through the garage door, responding police said they saw Preciado-Nuno kneeling down next to Long, who was on her back on the floor. Officers said they called him out of the garage and took him into custody.

Officers said they found Long lying on the floor in a large pool of blood with obvious trauma to the head. When paramedics arrived, they determined she was dead, the police report said.

Just south of her body, lying on the floor, were two claw hammers, police said. They also said there was a pool of blood on the floor around and near her body and blood spatter on the walls and ceiling.

Bloody footwear impressions were on the floor of the garage, through the connecting door into the kitchen and up the stairs to the master bedroom, the police report said. The bloody footwear impressions all appeared to have been made by the same pair of shoes, they said.