SLO murder defendant told mother he killed his roommate

A San Luis Obispo man accused of murdering his roommate in November 2015 phoned his mother from outside a police station to tell her he had killed the man during a fight and was going to turn himself in, the mother testified Tuesday in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

Charles Chad Giese, 40, is charged with a single count of murder — a charge that carries an enhancement for use of a deadly weapon, an aluminum baseball bat — in the death of Walter Vallivero, 54, with whom he shared a manufactured trailer home on Ranch Oaks Drive in rural San Luis Obispo.

Giese has pleaded not guilty.

At a preliminary hearing Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Jacquelyn Duffy ruled that enough evidence exists to take the case to trial.

Giese is due back in court Nov. 8.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home on Nov. 16, 2015, for a reported death. They found Vallivero’s bloodied body in a bathtub inside. Giese was eventually arrested on suspicion of murder.

At the time, a report provided by the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and written by Sheriff’s Detective Nathan Paul stated that Giese confessed to the killing. Paul, the lead investigator in the case, did not testify on Tuesday.

Instead, Duffy heard from Gary Walter, a forensic pathologist, who testified that Vallivero died from blunt force trauma. Walter, who performed the autopsy, said Vallivero’s body had several lacerations to the face and head, as well as on the arms and neck.

The fatal injury, Walter said, was a large laceration to the back of the head that fractured Vallivero’s skull, consistent with an injury caused by a baseball bat. Under cross-examination by Giese’s attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, Walter stated that Vallivero had alcohol in his system when the autopsy was performed.

Deputy District Attorney Fabiana Fede called Brenda Caves, Giese’s mother, to the stand. Caves said that on the morning of Nov. 16 she received a phone call from her distraught son saying he was going to turn himself in because he and Vallivero had gotten into a fight the day prior and “he killed him.”

She told him to come to her house and tell her what happened. When Giese arrived, Caves testified, he said that Vallivero had started drinking alcohol early the previous morning and started banging on walls and slamming doors while Giese — who was sick with pneumonia at the time, she said — was trying to sleep.

Caves testified that Giese said Vallivero’s behavior intensified during the day and he began threatening Giese, “getting into his face and telling him he had to move out.”

The verbal argument became a fistfight, she recalled Giese telling her, with Vallivero punching Giese in the jaw. Giese told her he grabbed the bat, which was nearby, and hit Vallivero in the head, she said, but said Giese did not say how many times he hit him. She said Giese then panicked and initially attempted to clean up the scene, dragging Vallivero’s body to the bathtub.

“He said he was very fearful and he didn’t know where he could go,” Caves said.

Caves said she asked Giese if Vallivero was still alive, and when Giese said he didn’t know, she called 911.

Dennis Carrington, the manager of the mobile home park, testified that in the year Giese lived with Vallivero, he never saw or heard the two arguing or fighting, but Vallivero had told him of several altercations in the past. Carrington testified that about a month prior to his death, Vallivero was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance after Giese “beat him up” when Vallivero “pulled a gun on him.”

Carrington said Vallivero was in the process of evicting Giese when he died and had asked Carrington for help with the paperwork.

“He was fearful things were deteriorating badly. He told me he basically feared for his life,” Carrington said. “The arguments were getting more intense and he said he was powerless to do anything about it.”

If convicted, Giese faces 26 years to life in state prison.

This story was originally published October 4, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "SLO murder defendant told mother he killed his roommate."