Adrian Gonzalez grilled about pornography, prison friends and intent in rape and murder of Madyson Middleton

Adrian Gonzalez took the witness stand all day Monday as he was grilled by county prosecutor Tara George, part of the ongoing trial for his release from custody. Gonzalez has been incarcerated since 2015, when the then-15-year-old raped and murdered his 8-year-old neighbor Madyson Middleton and hid her body in a dumpster at the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz.

Donning a blue button-down and black wireframe glasses, a clean-shaven Gonzalez gave measured, calm responses to George’s inquiries, even when they veered into disconcerting topics such as Gonzalez’s sexual proclivities, pornography habit and his thought processes on the day that he raped and murdered Middleton.

While George did not explain the logic behind her line of questioning, the tone of her inquiries suggested she was trying to paint Gonzalez as someone who was a serial liar; a manipulator; a confidant to sex offenders he met while incarcerated; and someone with suspect and perverse sexual fantasies.

Originally Gonzalez was on track to be released in October 2024, the month that he turned 25, but the Santa Cruz County District Attorney challenged his release. That sparked the current jury trial that will determine whether he is released soon, or in two years. Gonzalez has been in juvenile detention since being convicted of Middleton’s rape, kidnapping and murder.

Previously, Gonzalez testified that he felt he was no longer a danger after years of behavioral therapy and incarceration. In court Jan. 28, forensic psychologist Roger Karlsson, who examined Gonzalez in November 2024, testified that Gonzalez is at a low risk of reoffending, and categorized him as an “adult limited offender.” Many of George’s questions to Gonzalez on the stand Monday were centered on statements he had made to Karlsson.

At the beginning of his testimony on Monday, George asked Gonzalez if he liked the attention, from the media or from law enforcement, that he received after he committed the crime.

“Do you enjoy talking about this?” George asked, to which Gonzalez replied, “No, not at all.” 

“Have you ever been aroused talking about it?” she continued. 

“No, not at all,” he said. 

“You kind of like the attention that you get by talking about the crime, though, right?” she asked. 

“No,” he said. 

“In fact, you tell people that you’re kind of the face of Prop 57, don’t you?” she said, referring to a voter proposition passed in 2016 that let juvenile court judges use their own discretion to determine if 14- or 15-year-old defendants would be tried as adults.

“No, I don’t specifically remember making any statements to anyone saying that,” he replied.

Next, George asked Gonzalez about his memories related to his childhood, attempting to pin him for lying about how many different places he had lived. 

Yet it was unclear from Gonzalez’s testimony whether he had merely forgotten under pressure, and the defense attorney interjected and noted that George had misstated what he had remembered. Previous court testimony from family members supports that he had moved 35 times by the time he was 9.

Later, George asked him about starting fires, and his history with it. 

With nudging from George, Gonzalez recalled setting a bench on fire at the Tannery, using cologne as an accelerant.

Next, George asked him about animal abuse.

“I want to talk to you about incidents with you hurting animals,” she started, and asked him if he remembered “kicking kittens” when he was in the Philippines. Gonzalez’s mother, Reggie Factor, sent Adrian to live with family in the Philippines when he was 5 years old, and stated that her son lived there for “six to 10 months.”

George asked how many times Gonzalez had kicked kittens. Gonzalez did not remember clearly, but said it was under five times. 

“What did you feel when you kicked the kittens?” she continued. 

“Mostly I remember feeling discomfort from them trying to bite me,” he said after consideration. “That being the reason why I was kicking them.” 

Under prodding from George, Gonzalez then recalled the memory of his family owning a dog that he threw a stick at several times. 

“How did it feel when you hit the dog with a stick?” George asked. 

“It didn’t feel good. The main reason why I was hitting the dog was out of obedience,” he replied softly.

Next, Gonzalez and George had a back-and-forth about his teenage habit of stealing from Lenz Arts, something that previously emerged in Jan. 29 testimony. 

Later in the day, George dug into Gonzalez’s relationships with inmates and with people in the outside world, highlighting transgressions related to his incarceration in a juvenile facility in Sonoma. Gonzalez and George established that there was a list of approved people whom Gonzalez was allowed to call; sometimes he would be on three-way calls that would allow him to talk to unapproved persons, a fact he did not deny.

“In Sonoma you actually have to break the rules and do three-way calling?” George asked. 

“Yes,” said Gonzalez, clarifying that the phone systems are “completely different” in different facilities. “Over in Santa Cruz County Jail, we have a pay phone where you can use money on your books to dial off wherever you want to call,” he clarified. 

George then questioned him about his relationships with other people he met while incarcerated, including a man she referred to by the mononym “McGill,” whom Gonzalez befriended. 

“In the time that you met him in custody, you weren’t aware that at that point he [McGill] had over 8,000 images of child pornography?” she asked.  

“No, I wasn’t aware or talking about that with him,” he said. 

In further inquiries about his friendships, George referred to him as “Mr. McGill, your sex offender friend.”

George tried to get Gonzalez to admit to breaking other rules while in jail, particularly those related to reading books. Gonzalez said he had become an avid reader while incarcerated, and read Kurt Vonnegut’s classic satirical Cold War novel “Cat’s Cradle.” 

“You tried to get ‘Cat’s Cradle’ even though you knew that wasn’t allowed?” she asked. 

Gonzalez admitted he had. “I didn’t know that it was a book that I wasn’t supposed to have or that wasn’t allowed,” he rejoined. 

The Vonnegut classic has “significant violence” in it, George told the jury.

In the last hour of testimony on Monday, George interrogated Gonzalez over his consumption of pornography and his sexual habits. Despite the prurient nature of the inquiry and multiple objections from the defense lawyer, Gonzalez was calm and unemotional on the stand, even when talking about lewd jokes he had made with friends or about his pornography consumption. 

Over multiple questions, George asked Gonzalez to go through the ages he consumed pornography, how much, and what kinds. Gonzalez said that he started watching porn on the iPhone 4S that his mother got him when he was 12 or 13, and watched one to two hours a day of porn between ages 12 to 15.

Knowing that Gonzalez had choked Madyson Middleton prior to killing her, George asked if he had ever watched “choking porn,” to which he admitted he had.

“Is it fair to say, since you watched choking porn more than one time, watching it brought you some pleasure?” she asked. 

“No, I wouldn’t say pleasure. I would say out of curiosity, out of, to see what’s there,” he replied. Gonzalez explained that he didn’t specifically seek out choking porn, but that it would come up when he would search for “BDSM porn.” 

Last week, Karlsson testified that he did not believe Gonzalez fulfilled the criteria for a sexual sadism diagnosis — meaning arousal by inflicting pain — nor of any other sexual paraphilias. 

In the last minutes of Monday’s hearing, George homed in on the moments when he committed to raping Middleton.

“When is the first moment you knew that you were going to rape somebody?” George asked, to which Gonzalez demurred. Recalling what his 15-year-old self thought, Gonzalez said: “I would like to be more clear as to my thinking during this day,” explaining that he had a “desire to have sex with someone.” 

“At 15 years old, I wouldn’t say that I had an idea or thought of raping someone,” he said. 

George then rephrased her question: “You saw that Madyson, over there on her scooter, had tights and a dress and flip-flops on — was that the moment that you knew you were going to have sex with her?” 

“When … as I was going up to talk with her, or rather before I even talked with her, I did have a desire and want to bring her to the apartment to have sex with her,” he replied.

Gonzalez’s lawyer noted that the hearing was over time after this remark, and Judge Denine Guy ended the proceedings for the day. 

The hearing will pick up again on Tuesday in Santa Cruz County Superior Court.

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