On just the third day of jury trial, prosecutors rested their case yesterday against an alleged Norteños gang member who confessed he was hired to murder a McKinleyville man the gang suspected of stealing from them.

Soria.

Crescent City resident Isreal Soria Jr. is accused of the June 2021 attempted murder of Dylan Eubanks, who survived with a bullet wound to his arm after a gunman fired 11 shots into his home on Chapparal Drive.

In earlier testimony, jurors heard a tape recording of Soria’s confession, which included his admission to being a hired hitman who was paid an initial $7,500, with $25,000 due if he succeeded in murdering Eubanks. Eubanks did not testify during the trial.

On Monday the jury heard testimony from one of Eubanks’s former roommates, along with the accounts of some neighbors who heard gunfire, cries for help and then sirens.

The former roommate lived in the house with her boyfriend Tanner and Eubanks. She said she was lying in bed late at night when Eubanks, sounding stressed and worried, told her he thought someone was trying to get into the house.

The witness testified via Zoom because she is recovering from surgery. Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Trent Timm, she said that shortly after Eubanks spoke with her, she heard gunfire and crouched on the floor.

The next sound was Eubanks “screaming in pain, calling for help.”

“Me and Tanner went outside and found Dylan,” she said. “He was lying on the ground, shot … I remember holding his arm, keeping it elevated, because he was bleeding so bad.”

Then the first officer arrived, and she spent the rest of the night sitting outside as officers cleared the scene and searched the house.

At one point, she said, Eubanks was asking for his phone. She got permission to go into the house and grab the phone from the kitchen counter.

“There was broken glass on the floor, holes in the walls,” she recalled. One window pane was shattered.

On the crime scene log noting everyone who entered or exited the house, there is no mention of the roommate.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Christina DiEdoardo, the roommate said she was unaware officers found 2 pounds of marijuana in a hallway closet and 200 pounds — in four 50-pound bricks — in the garage.

‘’Two-hundred?!” she said, sounding shocked. “No.”

Law enforcement believes the alleged shooter stopped after firing 11 rounds because the gun jammed, likely because too many cartridges had been stuffed into the magazine.

Sheriff’s Deputy Johnathan Gomez testified he found 11 spent cartridges in an approximately 2 to 3-foot diameter area near the broken window. The right window pane was shattered, the left pane intact except for one distinct bullet hole about 4 feet off the ground.

When officers first arrived, Eubanks was in the process of climbing a fence outside. But it’s believed the shooter also climbed a fence as he was attempting to flee. He was arrested in a back yard in the neighborhood.

One neighbor called 911 to say she heard someone climbing her back fence, then pounding on her sliding glass door.

Another neighbor, Marissa Manson, said she heard gunfire and then “panicky” calls for help. She came outside to see a man crouched over and yelling.

“It looked like he was bleeding from his arm,” Manson said.

During Soria’s confession, he said he began firing at Eubanks after seeing him holding an assault rifle.

Soria is out of custody, which is highly unusual for a defendant facing a possible life term in prison. He posted $750,000 bail after his arrest and was able to hire DiEdoardo, who practices in the Bay Area.

DiEdoardo declined comment outside court. She is expected to present her case on Wednesday morning and could put Soria on the witness stand.

Timm and Deputy District Attorney Luke Bernthal are the trial prosecutors, with Judge Christopher Wilson presiding.

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