(NVR) - Opening statements were delivered Thursday in the murder trial of a vineyard worker accused of shooting to death an acquaintance in a south Napa vineyard to avoid paying a $1,000 debt.

Daniel Flores, 26, is charged with shooting 33-year-old Juvenal Gallegos with a .22-caliber rifle four or five times in the head over the loan after Gallegos asked for repayment. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Flores, who had met Gallegos when they worked at Truchard Vineyards on Old Sonoma Road, later went to the Latino Market on Jefferson Street in Napa to cash a $144 check that Gallegos had earned for doing yard work, Deputy District Attorney Lance Hafenstein said.

Authorities previously said Flores confessed to the killing. But his attorney, Joseph Solga, told the jury his client was pressured to make a false confession.

Solga said police failed to follow other leads early in the investigation. A man named “Chando” shot Gallegos over the bad marijuana after ordering Flores to bring Gallegos to the isolated vineyard, Solga said.

Gallegos, who was older and better established than Flores, a recent immigrant from Mexico, had badgered his client into having sex to pay off his debt, threatening him and his family, said Solga, showing translations of text exchanges between Gallegos and Flores.

Shown a photo lineup, a clerk at the Latino Market, said Flores did not cash the check, Solga said. The person who had signed the check had badly stained teeth, he said.

“Can you show the jury your teeth!,” Solga told his client at one point during his opening statements. Flores, who was seated at the defense table, listening via a translator, obliged.

Jo Anne Truchard testified Gallegos had worked at Truchard Vineyards between 2004 and the time he died in 2011. Juvenal Gallegos was very respectful, very responsible, she said.

Two of his brothers also worked at Truchard. “It’s a great family,” Truchard said.