Santa Clara: Murder charged, serial domestic violence alleged in 2022 homicide

SAN JOSE — A South Bay resident has been charged with murder after being accused of serial and violent domestic abuse that sent a man to the hospital nearly a dozen times and which authorities say eventually killed the victim nearly two years ago.

Brooks Albert Buncher, 32, of San Jose, was arraigned Friday in a San Jose courtroom on one count of murder and 11 counts of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, covering a two-year span that ended with the death of 26-year-old Fin Ortega in a Santa Clara hotel room on May 2, 2022.

Buncher was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on Wednesday and is being held without bail; they did not enter a plea Friday and were ordered to return to court April 4.

“This is a case that shows us what a domestic violence relationship looks like,” Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise said after the arraignment. “The victim is so controlled by his abuser, that even when seeking medical help for injuries the are extensive, he covers up for his abuser. In this case, it led to the worst possible outcome, which is Fin’s murder.”

Ortega was found dead after Buncher called 911 to report Ortega was experiencing “shortness of breath.” But a probable cause affidavit written by Santa Clara police states that a responding firefighter paramedic told investigators that after trying to revive Ortega, he found that the condition of the victim’s body suggested he “had been unresponsive or deceased far longer than Buncher claimed.”

The death was not immediately ruled as a homicide. The county Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office later came to that finding after concluding Ortega had died from “multiple blunt force injuries over an unspecified period,” according to police.

From there, Santa Clara homicide detectives pieced together a troubling series of injuries for which Ortega went to the hospital, the affidavit states. The criminal complaint containing the murder charge alleges that between September 2020 and March 2022, Ortega was treated or examined for serious injuries covering various instances of facial trauma, swollen eyes, a broken jaw, broken teeth, broken ribs, brain bleeds, and multiple lacerations.

When hospital staff, and police, asked Ortega about how the injuries occurred, he would tell them they came from accidents, falls and stranger assaults, according to the affidavit. Police wrote that various interviewers were skeptical of these claims since they did not line up with the nature of the injuries, and they observed injuries that “were at different stages of healing” over the course of the hospital visits.

At one point the injuries were severe enough that Ortega was discharged with a walker.

Further investigation revealed that police had previously been called to South Bay dwellings occupied by Buncher and Ortega, and that in an instance in March 2022 in Santa Clara, officers reported that Buncher “refused to allow the officers to speak to Ortega alone in the apartment while he was in the hall. He maintained a line of sight with Ortega the entire time. He assured the officers he would never do anything to harm Ortega.”

“He also coached Ortega throughout the contact to be dismissive of the officers and to try not to speak to the officers alone,” the affidavit states. “Ortega appeared to have a severely injured, likely broken finger, which he could provide no explanation for. He also had scratches on his body. He and Buncher provided inconsistent reasons for the scratches. However, Ortega denied any physical abuse and the officers cleared the scene.”

Police did uncover a 2019 questionnaire filled out when Ortega visited a mobile medical unit in which he stated that he had been living in a car in a San Jose parking lot with another person and that he had experienced physical abuse and felt unsafe. The investigation determined that medical visit overlapped with when Buncher and Ortega were living in a car in a San Jose parking lot.

A friend of Ortega’s would reportedly tell investigators that “Buncher had total control over Ortega,” and that “Ortega disclosed Buncher’s abuse to him on multiple phone conversations, but often had to hurry off the phone because he was scared Buncher would soon return.”