Autopsy shows Eddie Giron was shot 14 times, including apparent self-inflicted wound to head
The mentally ill man who killed a San Luis Obispo police detective was shot 14 times, an autopsy shows, including a fatal, apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The private autopsy obtained exclusively by The Tribune says Edward “Eddie” Zamora Giron was hit 10 times from the front and four from behind.
Giron, 35, died in the shootout as police served a search warrant for stolen property on May 10 at his apartment on Camellia Court.
The autopsy, conducted on behalf of Giron’s family by forensic pathologist Duc Van Duong of Private Autopsy Inc., shows that Giron was shot once in the left temple, six times in the torso, three times in the buttocks and four times in his extremities (knees, shoulder, and hand).
The gunshot to the left temple caused severe brain damage, while other shots caused severe damage to Giron’s internal organs (liver and lungs), Duong wrote in the report, noting that he died quickly.
Duong said that he has not received any records from the county about the shooting and needed more information to draw any conclusions.
SLO police said in a May 11 news release that Giron was found dead in the apartment “with an apparent self-inflicted, fatal gunshot wound and other injuries consistent with being struck by the officers’ return fires.”
Though he would not elaborate on the type of firearm Giron allegedly used in the shooting, when asked by a Tribune reporter whether it was “an assault-style rifle” after the May 11 press conference, Sheriff Ian Parkinson said “that aligns” with evidence but declined to elaborate. The autopsy report does not specify the weapon.
The San Luis Obispo County death certificate signed June 30 by Sheriff’s Deputy Coroner Ronald Slaughter, also obtained by The Tribune, lists as Giron’s cause of death a “single perforating rifle wound to the head.”
Slaughter wrote that the fatal injury occurred when Giron “shot himself in the head with a rifle,” and listed other contributing factors leading to death as “multiple gunshot wounds and pellet injuries to the trunk and extremities.”
Giron’s fatal injury came to the left side of his head. A source close to Giron who declined to be identified, however, told The Tribune that Giron was right-handed.
It’s unclear what specific type of weapon or weapons Giron had in his home.
In May, Giron’s mother told The Tribune his father had given him three pheasant hunting rifles, which she believed to be in his possession at the time of the shooting. A close friend of Giron’s told The Tribune that she told a San Luis Obispo police officer that he possessed unregistered firearms, though she did not know the specific types of weapons.
The Tribune has not obtained an autopsy report for Benedetti.
The Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the fatal officer shooting and will turn over their findings to the District Attorney’s Office, declined comment Wednesday on the autopsy and other details.
“The Sheriff’s Office is unable to comment at this time because the investigation into this incident is active and ongoing,” said sheriff’s spokesman Tony Cipolla.
The Sheriff’s Office has declined a Tribune request for Giron’s autopsy report or any other records related to the investigation.
San Luis Obispo Police Chief Rick Scott — who took over as chief shortly after the shooting — said in response to a request for comment Wednesday that questions about Giron’s independent autopsy report are “well outside the scope of the city’s role in the investigation.”
He said that while he had not yet seen the report, the city does not possess the medical expertise and is therefore not in a position to comment on or speculate about Duong’s medical conclusions.
City turns over more records of contacts with Giron
Family and friends of Giron’s said he suffered from untreated mental illness and they reached out repeatedly to the Police Department about his well-being.
Documents provided to The Tribune via a Public Records Act request earlier this month confirmed their accounts and showed that San Luis Obispo police officers responded to 10 calls for service related to Giron.
The first few calls were related to noise and loud music before escalating to warnings that he was “exhibiting signs of mania and paranoia” and was “very skeptical” of police.
The calls to check his welfare continued from July to January and culminated in Giron’s public intoxication arrest during a trespassing incident at a Trader Joe’s in January.
Records provided by the city this week show that in addition to those police interactions, Giron was also engaged in an increasingly bizarre email thread with the San Luis Obispo Police Department’s neighborhood outreach manager in May and August 2020.
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The noise citations and related reports show Giron was cited March 24 by a police officer after neighbors complained about loud music. It was the second police visit that day for noise.
He was cited for noise again a day later, and a police officer wrote in his report that Giron was “argumentative, talked over me while I was trying to explain the complaint to him, and was being unreasonable.”
Each time, Giron told officers he was a student but refused to say where.
Emails provided by the city show that following the March 24 police visits, the department’s neighborhood outreach manager contacted staffers at Cal Poly and Cuesta College to determined where Giron went to school so that school employees could perform “campus-based outreach to reinforce the behavior is not supporting neighborhood wellness and civility.”
A Cuesta staffer confirmed he was a student and said they would be calling and emailing him regarding his behavior.
On May 19, Giron emailed the neighborhood outreach manager at the Police Department, saying that he was told by his property management company he needed to discuss the noise complaints with her.
“OK, so I honestly would like to know if there is anything I can do to help my situation. I did not mean to upset any of my neighbors that day. I don’t have any excuses, it was a series of mistakes on my part,” Giron wrote. “Its hard to explain my feelings on this, but I’ve never had a noise violation like this before, and if there was/or is anything I can do, I would gladly do it.”
He explained he was on unemployment after losing one of his two jobs and was facing fines from the noise violations.
The manager explained that the appeal information was on the back of his citations but that the deadline to appeal the citations had passed.
“Looking at the history of the evening patrol visited your apartment, it’s astonishing that it took three visits before you changed your behavior,” the department employee, who The Tribune is not identifying, wrote back to Giron, adding that the city has payment plans available.
“The officers told me I could appeal when I got the email voice which I just got. There was reason I have on video I will not be paying the second fine,” Giron wrote.
He wrote back later in the day: “I think there were many misunderstandings that day, the first week of this Crisis, it astonishing no one talked to me at all and I get to feel fully discriminated against! I was asleep for the 3rd violation. Absolutely astonishing!”
Giron did not write back until Aug. 27.
“I now have no jobs since we last talked. Any way the city can help me not owe $2,000 to it since I’m unable to pay rent?? Astonishing I know,” he wrote. “Maybe I can apologize to my neighbors since i don’t think they are all actually bad people, (they) hate me and want me out of town ... is that weird ... Or would you prefer I leave town?”
The department employee again directed Giron to the finance department to establish a payment plan.
He wrote back the next day, “Would you prefer I leave town?”
“Also need some better resources ... like why is your job you job? And the other person takes my money only....? I was directed to you! Your job is to help me and provide ME!!!! A member of your community! I need you to be a better resource now,” he wrote.
He wrote in another email: “What can you do!? How can you help!?!! I don’ t have the rent money I’m supposed to give you?!!! For real, it’s your Job! Sorry if this is more forward then your used to ... but I seriously need your help ... we are in a pandemic and people are ACTUALLY DYING! What are you DOING OTHER THEN what you’ve done for me as a representative of this city?”
He ended his last email with: “EZG ... With love”
The Police Department employee did not respond further in records provided to The Tribune.
The city also provided records this week that shows the Police Department received four emails regarding Giron from July to November, though it is unclear whether those emails are related to police records previously provided by the city.
In one email July 14, 2020, the emailer reported “subject exhibiting behavioral concerns and cautious about personal implications of intervention regarding mental condition of subject and seeking advice.”
Investigation into shooting
San Luis Obispo city officials issued a statement on May 26, citing the external investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and “its own internal review.”
“It’s important for people to know that police officers carefully prepare to minimize risk before serving a search warrant,” said Whitney Szentesi, SLO’s public communications manager, in the emailed response. “As a matter of public safety, it is standard practice for multiple officers to serve a search warrant.”
Szentesi added that “in the case of the search warrant served on May 10, SLOPD was aware of past contacts with the suspect, Mr. Giron.”
“None of these contacts were violent in nature nor did they result in an involuntary mental health hold,” Szentesi said. “A pre-warrant check disclosed that he had no firearms registered to him.”
Leading up to the May 10 incident, Giron was suspected of committing a series of commercial burglaries in SLO. Six officers approached his apartment as part of the search.
Search warrants must be reviewed and authorized by a judge based on a legal standard of probable cause.
They provided a “knock and notice” identifying themselves as law enforcement before police said Giron opened fire at officers from inside the apartment, SLO police said in their news release.
Benedetti’s death led to an outpouring of support and community grief, including a funeral service held at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center, which was livestreamed and attended by thousands.
Giron’s history of mental illness
In May, Giron’s mother, Caroline Wichman of San Jose, told The Tribune her son had experienced mental illness, including depression, dating back to the early 2000s when he left college, a mechanic school in Colorado, after his father died.
Giron saw a therapist and took medication for about four months before starting his job at Costco in San Luis Obispo in 2005, she said. He worked for the big-box retailer for more than 15 years before being fired in July 2020, she said.
Wichman said she called the San Luis Obispo Police Department police multiple times in the fall of 2020 when her son went missing for a few weeks in October and November, recalling those pleas for law enforcement help being “every other day.”
“I told them over and over and over,” Wichman said of her son’s mental illness. “There was so much that led up to this.”
One of Giron’s closest friends, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said the San Luis Obispo Police Department was alerted about Giron’s apparent mental illness and that he possessed unregistered weapons.
The friend maintained email and phone communication with a San Luis Obispo police officer from July to October, according to email, social media and phone records that she provided to The Tribune.
At the May 11 press conference, Parkinson also said that, though Giron had a criminal history of nonviolent “alcohol, drug, and property offenses,” he “had no registered firearms to him.”
“There was no indication of anything in our files of mental illness,” Parkinson said at the time.
The Sheriff’s Office has clarified that Parkinson was only referring to his agency in that statement, not the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
Correction: This story was changed to reflect Sheriff Ian Parkinson’s response to a reporter’s question after a press conference regarding the type of weapon used in the May 10 shooting by Giron.
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 6:12 PM.
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