WOODLAND — Bryan Hoskins Jr. says the characteristics used to describe his father over the past few weeks don’t mesh with those of the man who raised him.
Though big, bald and bearded, “he was easygoing,” said Hoskins Jr., 37, who on Wednesday was called as the prosecution’s final rebuttal witness at his stepmother’s murder trial in Yolo Superior Court.
“He was a decent person who cared about people,” Hoskins Jr. added. “He had a problem with alcohol, but in my experience was not the monster they’ve tried to perceive him to be throughout this trial.”
Susan Hoskins, 60, is accused of fatally shooting Bryan Hoskins Sr. in the kitchen of their Knollwood Drive condominium.
Her defense attorneys claim the Aug. 3, 2014, shooting was justified, carried out in the midst of Hoskins Sr.’s abusive rage that put her in fear for her safety.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, say Susan Hoskins shot out of frustration with her husband’s alcohol abuse, name-calling and accusations of infidelity, and that her allegations of domestic violence are unfounded.
Hoskins Jr., now a Monterey County sheriff’s sergeant who lived with or visited the couple during his middle school and high school years, conceded their marriage was “definitely rocky and volatile — they had their ups and downs.”
He also acknowledged his father’s alcoholism, a decades-long struggle that Hoskins Jr. said he became aware of at age 5, when he found Hoskins Sr. passed out in the garage of their home.
But unlike defense witnesses who said Hoskins Sr. could be mouthy and aggressive when he drank — and sometimes even when he didn’t — Hoskins Jr. said alcohol made his father quiet and emotional.
“He’s an ‘I love you, man,’-type drunk,” Hoskins Jr. said. “He was a very mellow person while intoxicated.”
Hoskins Jr. also disputed defense claims that Susan Hoskins had been abused, describing occasions where the defendant pestered her husband over his faults and even threatened to bury him in the desert, overdose him on pills or “feed him to the pigs.”
Still, “there’s no doubt in my mind that he loved her,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense attorney J. Tony Serra confronted Hoskins Jr. at one point over his use of the term “murder” to describe his father’s death — a ruling that ultimately must be made by jurors in the case.
“Are you trying to influence the jury?” Serra asked.
“No sir, I’m not trying to influence the jury,” Hoskins Jr. responded.
When asked whether he believed the defense’s character witnesses — including Hoskins Sr.’s former neighbors and co-workers at the Yolo County Probation Department — had made up their testimony, Hoskins Jr. insisted they didn’t describe the man he knew.
“Mr. Serra, I could probably find 100 people that would make you into a monster or make me into a monster, but it doesn’t provide an overall picture of who a person is,” he said. “I know him better than any of those people.”
Following Hoskins Jr.’s testimony, jurors in the case heard the beginning of attorneys’ closing arguments, which continued this morning in Judge David Reed’s courtroom.
The case was expected to be in the jury’s hands sometime today.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene