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SALT LAKE CITY -- When an armed man walked into Faviola Hernandez's Glendale salon and demanded money, she went into an adjacent room where she kept her purse.
She returned moments later not with cash, but with a small-caliber handgun she had carried for protection since a previous robbery, according to testimony Monday in the murder trial of Miguel Mateos-Martinez.
Two witnesses -- a client and Hernandez' younger sister -- identified Mateos-Martinez, 23, in court as the robber who then fired a single shot into her chest, killing her.
Mateos-Martinez is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated assault in the shooting death of Hernandez, 24, on Aug. 15, 2007.
Laura Hernandez testified that she went to the salon with her sister and 6-year-old brother, Junior, that Sunday afternoon. There, "Favi" cut the hair of a friend, Leonel Hernandez, while Laura and Junior went across the street to a school playground.
As they played, Laura Hernandez said, she saw a green car with dark windows drive back and forth several times past the Salt Lake salon at 1329 W. 1300 South. She and her brother went back to the salon shortly before the robber entered and ordered everyone to the floor.
Leonel Hernandez said he reached for his wallet, but the robber yelled at him to stay down. Neither he nor Laura Hernandez got more than a brief glimpse of the man, and both were looking down as the shot rang out and he ran from the salon.
Police originally described the robber as 5 feet 8 inches tall and 230 pounds, while Mateos-Martinez, who was arrested in Mexico and extradited to Utah in 2008, is 5 feet 3 inches tall.
His attorneys said there is reasonable doubt that Mateos-Martinez was the robber, noting that the original description also included a blue and purple tattoo on the inside of the man's right arm, a tattoo Mateos-Martinez does not have.
The getaway driver in the robbery, Jesus Alarcon Jimenez, 25, was arrested driving a teal car in Midvale the day after the shooting. He was convicted in 2008 of murder and aggravated robbery and sentenced to two terms of up to life in prison.
Prosecutors intend Tuesday to call Jimenez's ex-girlfriend, who told investigators she was in the car with the two men.
Defense attorney Ralph Dellapiana attacked her credibility in an opening statement, saying she had changed her story several times. He also said another witness set to testify about a confession Mateos-Martinez allegedly made in jail is "a classic jailhouse snitch who really, really wants a deal."
E-mail: pkoepp@desnews.com
