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Trial begins in case of two men accused of five murders at Long Beach homeless encampment in ’08

Then-Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell in 2012 announces the arrest of David Ponce and Max Rafael in connection with the slayings of five people at a homeless encampment in 2008.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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Inside the small tent, their limbs intertwined. A man and two women, all shot in the head. Nearby, another man was crumpled on his side, his legs drained of color. And in another tent, a fifth victim lay face down in a pool of blood.

The 2008 quintuple murder at the Long Beach homeless encampment — one of the city’s deadliest massacres — took several years for detectives to piece together. But in 2012, police arrested two gang members — David Ponce and Max Rafael — in connection with the slayings. On Wednesday, both men appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court for the first day of their murder trial.

During opening statements, Deputy Dist. Atty. Cynthia Barnes told jurors that around 11 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2008, Ponce, now 36, and Rafael, now 31, arrived at the tucked-away camp shaded beneath hanging bottlebrush trees off the 405 Freeway. They were looking for a man named Lorenzo Villicana — “L.V.,” they said — and forced Hamid “Sammy” Shraifat, who lived at the camp, to direct them to him.

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Once in front of Villacana’s tent, the prosecutor said, Ponce shot him, as well as Vanessa Malaepule, 34, and Katherine Verdun, 24, who were also in the tent. Then, to cover their tracks, the prosecutor said, Rafael shot Shraifat, 41, and Frederick Neumeier, 53, who was in a neighboring tent.

A week before the slayings, one of Ponce’s friends had gotten into a fight with Villacana, Barnes said. Prosecutors have previously said the slayings were motivated by a drug debt. Both defendants, Barnes told jurors, are longtime members of the Nuthood Watts gang, and both defendants bragged about the slayings.

In court, Barnes played a recording of Ponce seemingly confessing to a jailhouse informant.

“I emptied a whole clip,” Ponce says. “They all slumped on each other.”

“Damn,” the informant responds.

Four months after the slayings, Barnes said, Ponce killed again. On March 23, 2009, according to Barnes, he forced Tony Bledsoe — who owed him money — into his car and drove to a desolate spot in the Antelope Valley near Lake Los Angeles, which skirts the western edge of the Mojave Desert. He then made Bledsoe get on his knees and shot him four times in the head. Two bullets to the front, the prosecutor said, and two to the back.

In another recorded jailhouse conversation, Ponce says Bledsoe prayed before he shot him.

“He got onto his knees,” Ponce says. “Bam, bam, bam.”

“Did you bury him?” the informant asks.

“No,” he responds. “I left him like that.”

Six months later, a woman riding her horse in the desert near Lake Los Angeles noticed her dog sniffing at something. It was a man’s hand. It belonged to Bledsoe.

Ponce also bragged to his then-girlfriend about the Long Beach slayings and about killing Bledsoe, Barnes said, adding that the former girlfriend is expected to testify.

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Both defendants are charged with five counts of murder, including the special circumstance allegations that they murdered someone for witnessing a crime, committed murder while an active participant of a criminal street gang and committed murder during the commission of a kidnapping. Both also are charged with kidnapping Shraifat, and Ponce is charged with kidnapping and murder in Bledsoe’s slaying. If convicted, Ponce could face the death penalty, and Rafael faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But Ponce’s attorney, Robert A. Schwartz, argued that his client isn’t guilty of murder, saying Ponce wasn’t confessing, but bragging to impress someone above him in the prison hierarchy. Schwartz said the informant presented himself as a representative of Eulalio “Lalo” Martinez, a reputed member of the Mexican Mafia, and plied Ponce with pruno, a crude, inmate-crafted wine, before the recorded conversations.

His client only knew details about the slayings from media coverage, Schwartz told jurors, adding that Ponce told the informant “a lot of things that are just outright lies.”

Seated at the defense table, Ponce nodded.

During his opening arguments, Rafael’s attorney, Marc Lewinstein, referred to the Long Beach slayings as “brutal, horrific crimes” but said his client wasn’t there that night. The second shooter, the attorney said, was a childhood friend of Ponce’s who was once a suspect. He said police only focused on his client after Ponce’s then-girlfriend — who had previously said she didn’t know who the accomplice was — pointed authorities to Rafael.

On the stand Wednesday, retired Long Beach Police Det. Mark McGuire testified that he’d investigated about 200 murder cases over the years. When the prosecutor asked if he’d ever responded to a crime scene with more than one dead victim, he said, “yes,” adding that he’d been assigned cases with two murder victims.

“Three?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” he responded.

“Four?”

“No.”

“Five?”

“This one.”

As the exchange ended, a juror shook his head.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

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For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber

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