Trial begins in 1992 Germantown slaying

For more than two decades, Santiago Pedroso avoided trial in the 1992 slaying of Delores Alvarez. He fled to the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and, finally, the Philippines, where he remarried and had three children.

The 73-year-old man's fate could be decided in mere days in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, where testimony began Tuesday in the slaying on the night of June 21, 1992.

On that day, Alvarez had been dining at Germantown's Hathaway Inn with Pedroso's estranged wife, Maria Gomez, who had taken up with the victim. Prosecutors said Pedroso aimed his .38-caliber revolver at Alvarez because he believed her to be his wife's lover.

Pedroso is expected to face his daughter Rachel - who witnessed the shooting - for the first time since that night when she testifies for the prosecution Wednesday.

Graying, and dressed in a white jumpsuit, Pedroso was motionless for much of Tuesday's session.

"He was much stronger then," Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax said in his opening arguments. "And he was way better armed than he is in this courtroom."

Authorities at the U.S. Embassy in Manila arrested Pedroso, who had wanted to travel again and applied for a new passport, in 2013. He was extradited to Philadelphia, where he has spent the last 17 months in custody awaiting trial.

Pedroso, in a statement to homicide detectives on Sept. 19, 2013, claimed Alvarez had shot at him and that he had acted in self-defense. There was no physical evidence or testimony to indicate Alvarez, 41, had been armed, Sax said.

"Why am I going to stick around?" the statement says Pedroso told detectives. "I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison."

Richard J. Giuliani, Pedroso's court-appointed attorney, said he was not sure whether Pedroso would testify. Giuliani declined to comment on his client's defense strategy.

The testimony of Rachel might be the most significant. She was 17 at the time of the shooting, and numerous witnesses - including a patron who had been in the restaurant's bar - heard her scream at her father to stop.

She had dined with Pedroso at the Hathaway earlier in the evening. It was Father's Day. As the two exited the restaurant, they saw Gomez and Alvarez sitting at a table.

That, prosecutors said, is when an enraged Pedroso darted to his house, one block away, to get his revolver.

On Tuesday, the prosecution presented three witnesses who recalled details of the killing more than 22 years ago.

Jeffrey Minio, a patron, told the jury he saw a man enter the restaurant while a crying woman chased him.

"He looked very upset," Minio told the jury. "He was not happy."

Walter White, a waiter, said he took Alvarez's order.

"A chicken walnut salad," White testified.

He headed for the kitchen and heard two loud bangs. When he returned, he saw a man fire twice more. White said he retreated to the kitchen while other diners flipped over tables for cover.

Minio, using a purple marker, retraced the man's steps on an enlarged floor plan.

"The same way he walked in," Minio said, "he walked out."

Afterward, Rachel stood in the restaurant's lobby with her mother, whose blouse was stained with blood.

Richard Keen, one of the first police officers to respond to the scene, approached them.

"My father shot my mother's friend," Rachel told him.

Pedroso, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Cuba, was a spiritualist who owned a store in Hunting Park. He separated from Gomez just before the shooting, and his wife was living with Alvarez.

"She took my wife away from me," Pedroso told detectives in 2013.

Alvarez was shot five times - once in the chest, and four times in the head. Gomez died within the last six months.