Perez trial testimony focuses on deaths and life insurance payouts

Where Daniel Perez moved for more than a decade – from South Texas to South Dakota to outside Wichita – he charmed people, raped girls and orchestrated million-dollar life insurance policies for members of his communal family before they died, witnesses testified Tuesday.

Prosecutors took jurors down a twisting trail in Sedgwick County District Court. There, the 55-year-old is on trial on charges that include first-degree murder, rape, sodomy, sexual exploitation of a child, aggravated assault, criminal threat and directing that false information be put on life insurance and car credit applications.

One by one, people who lived and moved with Perez from state to state over the years died of what appeared to be accidents, resulting in large life insurance payouts, according to testimony.

One of the dead, whom Perez is accused of murdering, is Patricia Hughes, a 26-year-old wife and mother. Her death in 2003 was first thought to be an accidental drowning in a pool where she, Perez and others lived on North Oliver outside Wichita. Her death led to an insurance payout of $1.24 million. Her husband died later, in South Dakota, resulting in a payout of about $730,000, according to testimony.

There were other deaths and other payouts – always with Perez as the common denominator – prosecutors are seeking to show.

Witnesses testified that he was the leader of a commune on a 20-acre compound north of Kechi, the one who directed the purchase of up to 30 sports cars and high-end trucks and SUVs costing perhaps $1 million over about a three-year period. Perez picked the vehicles, the colors and the options but didn’t put his name on any paperwork.

When Perez and others in his group lived on North Oliver, he was the one who decided who was insured on life insurance policies and who the beneficiaries were, Bill Hatton testified Tuesday. Hatton was their insurance agent.

In other testimony Tuesday, Hughes’ mother, Rosalinda Gomez, said she had talked with her daughter three days before her death and that her daughter was planning to move back to Texas. Perez had dated her daughter decades ago in Beeville, Texas. Then Hughes left with him, moving from state to state as their group grew in size, according to testimony.

Another big insurance payout had occurred in 2001, following a plane crash in South Dakota that killed Mona Griffith, her boyfriend and her 12-year-old daughter. Griffith and her daughter had moved with Perez years before from South Texas.

Bernhard Winkler testified about meeting with Griffith, Hughes and Perez in Rapid City, S.D. Griffith wanted life insurance, and Winkler was selling. He sold a $750,000 policy and had never issued a policy for that much, he said. Griffith named Hughes as a beneficiary.

While the plane was still missing, Perez and Hughes came to Winkler and wanted to start the proceeding to get the $750,000 death benefit, Winkler said. “How long is it going to take before a death benefit is paid, that was the basic question each time,” Winkler testified.

Later, after the payout, he learned that Perez and Hughes had moved away. At one point, they had been so low on funds, Winkler said, he loaned them enough to pay for utilities. After the payout, Perez was driving a Corvette.

In 2003, after Hughes died, Perez became acquainted with a young man named Phillip Young. Now, 34, Young testified that he met Perez, whom he knew as Lou Castro, at a Wichita nightclub. Eventually, Young was paying rent and living with the group in one of the three houses that eventually would occupy the tract on North Oliver.

Perez “indicated he could see the future, he had visions,” Young testified. Hughes’ husband, Brian, was visiting South Dakota. When Young asked Perez when Brian Hughes was returning, “He told me he didn’t think Brian was going to come home,” Young said.

Brian Hughes died when a vehicle he was working on reportedly fell on him.

When Chief Deputy District Attorney Kim Parker asked Young whether he thought he was going to die as well, Young said it seemed there was a “trend” but that Perez told him he didn’t foresee anything happening to Young.

David Quiring testified that he ended up on the compound because he married a woman whose role in the group was financial manager. She paid the bills on the houses, the vehicles and the credit cards. The Eagle is not naming her to protect the identity of her daughters, whom Perez is accused of sexually abusing. Quiring said he didn’t go to “family” meetings at the compound.

He described his wife as devoted to Perez. “I think my wife would have done just about anything and everything Lou asked her to do,” Quiring said, referring to the first name Perez used then.

“She told me she wondered … who was going to take care of Lou if anything happened to her.”

She died in an apparent traffic accident in September 2008, and her death resulted in a $1.25 million payout.

A woman, now 33, testified that when she was 14, she and her mother and brother lived with Perez for a short time in South Texas. He led her to believe he was a correctional officer and sexually assaulted her, she testified.

He threatened to kill her entire family if she said anything, she testified. The Eagle is not naming her because she is alleged to be a sex-crime victim.

At one point, she said, she had trusted Perez. He acted as if he had magical powers, she testified.

While still a young teen, she spoke up about the sex crimes, and police in South Texas investigated. One officer told her she was lying, she said.

She heard later that Perez had been found dead in Mexico.

The woman’s mother then testified that when she met Perez years ago, he seemed to be a “nice, charming man,” before she pursued charges against him.

Like her daughter, she thought Perez was dead. Then she relocated to – of all places – the Kechi area. And one day in 2007 or 2008, she saw a yard-sale sign that led her to a property on North Oliver where Perez was living.

She recognized Perez when she saw him at the sale. She didn’t go to police “because I was scared,” she said. He was supposed to be dead.

“I didn’t think anybody would believe me.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2015 at 12:37 PM.