The DNA of a 34-year-old Soboba tribe member charged with carjacking and killing a cab driver he called to pick him up matches DNA found in the taxi, a criminalist testified today.

Gabriel Gerard Resvaloso faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder and the special circumstance allegation of murder during a carjacking.

He also faces a weapons allegation and has convictions for drug use, growing pot, carrying weapons and violating parole, according to court documents.

Resvaloso is accused of leaving a wounded James Burrows, 42, on the reservation on Dec. 4, 2005.  Burrows died 17 days later.

Testifying for the prosecution today was Mark Traughber, a criminalist with the state Department of Justice.

Traughber told the jury he tested a beer can found in the yellow Scion Burrows used as a cab and got plenty of DNA from it.

The DNA was a match for Resvaloso. The criminalist said he also tested the car’s steering wheel, the driver’s head rest and a pair of gloves found in the vehicle.

The steering wheel contained Resvaloso’s DNA but also someone else’s, Traughber said.

The head rest did not contain Resvaloso’s DNA. The gloves had quite a bit of DNA, where skin cells sloughed off the wearer’s hands.

Traughber said Resvaloso was a major donor of the DNA found in the gloves.

He said Resvaloso’s DNA was rare, occurring in fewer than one in a trillion people.

“It’s very rare,” Traughber said.

According to the prosecution, Resvaloso called the taxi to a motel where he was staying and was the last one to see the cabbie alive.

The Scion was abandoned in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Hemet, down the street from where Resvaloso was staying at the time.

According to testimony at a 2007 preliminary hearing, a .45-caliber bullet taken out of Burrow’s body came from a pistol found in the defendant’s motel room.

The defense contends that no witnesses can place Resvaloso on the reservation the night before or the day of the shooting.