A 19-year-old Pearl Harbor base cashier who disappeared in 1992 either was shot to death because he was a witness to an $80,000 robbery or went into hiding because he was an accomplice in the holdup.

That's the issue a Circuit Court jury must resolve as a trial opened yesterday for Jenaro Torres on a charge of murdering Ruben Gallegos, who was last seen May 1, 1992, the day of the robbery.

Torres, 58, a Pearl Harbor police officer at the time of the offense, was arrested when he tried to drive into Pearl Harbor about five hours after robbery. Recovered from the car was a gun and a bag with about $78,000 of the stolen cash, according to authorities.

Torres was convicted of robbing Gallegos of $80,000 and served two years in federal prison.

But Torres was not charged with murder until 2005 in the first case resulting from an investigation by the attorney general's cold case unit. Torres was arrested in December 2005 in Las Vegas and is being held here without bail.

Under state law, prosecutors can seek a murder conviction even though a body isn't recovered. Prosecutors must establish that the victim is dead, however, a task more difficult without a body.

In her opening statements to the jury, Deputy Attorney General Susan Won portrayed Gallegos as a shy, smiling and naive young man who planned on later attending Hawai'i Pacific University. She said Gallegos was close to his family, but never contacted his relatives after he disappeared.

Won told the jury that in 1997, Torres told Susan Davis, a co-worker at a California company, he was involved in a robbery and as an accomplice appeared to be going for a gun, Torres "took him out."

Davis was terrified and didn't tell authorities about the conversation until 1999, Won said.

Deputy public defender Edward Harada, Torres' lawyer, told the jury that the robbery was an "inside job" and Gallegos was a willing participant. Harada said Gallegos is "missing, but not dead."

The defense lawyer told the jury that his client admitted to Davis he was involved in a robbery, but was trying to impress her by embellishing other comments and saying things that weren't true.

Davis will say Torres said he had to clean up blood, but no blood or gunshot residue was detected in Torres' car, Harada said.

"This case starts out as a mystery and it ends as a mystery," Harada told the jurors.

If convicted of the murder, Torres faces a mandatory life term with parole.

The trial is expected to last about two weeks in Circuit Judge Michael Town's courtroom.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.