A dad who was on trial for murder appeared to signal for his daughter to stop talking as she testified against him in a Wisconsin courtroom.
The accused murderer Zachariah Anderson, 42, is charged with killing 40-year-old Rosalio Gutierrez Jr who vanished from his apartment in 2020.
As per the Independent, Gutierrez had been dating Anderson's former girlfriend Sadie Beacham, who is also the mother of the latter's children.
Prosecutors claim that Anderson became jealous of his ex-girlfriend sparking up a new romance and this resulted in him stalking her.
Anderson allegedly broke into the victim's house on the evening of May 17 2020 where he killed him in a brutal manner.
Prosecutors claim that the body was then disposed of and his disappearance was noted two days later when Beacham reported him missing.
After being unable to contact her boyfriend, she headed to his home where she discovered the patio door open and blood splattered around the interior.
While the body has never been recovered, it is believed that Gutierrez is deceased due to his vanishing being matched with the large amount of blood in his home.
Anderson was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse, and stalking and was part of a high-profile trial on Wednesday.
During the trial, Anderson's daughter took to the stand to testify against him and describe the state of her father's behavior in the days leading up to Gutierrez's disappearance.
As reported by Kenosha News, the 15-year-old was allegedly asked to spy on her mother and document whenever she would get upset.
The accused allegedly took his daughter with him to spy on Gutierrez and would speak about him using racial slurs.
"He said something about showing him who the man was, and I didn’t quite understand, but you kind of caught onto things that my dad was referring to or was implying," Anderson's 15-year-old daughter said.
"My dad said to me, he said I may just watch him or follow him to his house one time just for the fun of it. Those were his exact words to me."
Anderson, presumably unhappy with his daughter testifying against him, appeared to bring his hand up to his lips where he seemed to gesture to his daughter to stop talking.
The prosecution picked up on this gesture and accused Anderson of attempting to communicate with his daughter, while the defense argued that Beacham had also attempted to use sign language to speak to her daughter as she testified.
The 15-year-old stated that her father would bring her with him as he spied on his ex-girlfriend with her new partner, and this would include breaking into his truck.
Prosecutors alleged that Gutierrez's DNA was found inside Anderson's van and that the crime scene had traces of bleach as if someone had attempted to clean it.
If found guilty, Anderson could face life behind bars.
