Picked in Lineup : Suspect Held in Slaying of Disc Jockey

A Paramount man suspected in a string of auto thefts at gunpoint is being held without bail in Orange County Jail after a witness identified him as the man who shot to death her boyfriend, a popular Santa Ana nightclub disc jockey.

Ramiro Jimenez Navarro, 19, is suspected of shooting Frank Berman, 24, once in the back of the head during an attempted car theft on Aug. 16, Santa Ana Police Det. William M. Erhart said.

Berman and his girlfriend, Luz Maria Jimenez, were talking in the car at 2:30 a.m. in the 500 block of S. Oak Street in Santa Ana when Navarro approached and tried to open the door, police said. When Berman started the car and tried to escape, he was shot through the glass window.

Died a Day Later

The car swerved out of control down the street, striking a parked pickup truck. Berman died in the hospital a day later.

Jimenez identified Navarro as her boyfriend’s killer in a police lineup Monday, Erhart said.

Navarro had come under suspicion two weeks after the shooting, when police tied eight strong-arm robberies and auto thefts in Orange and Los Angeles counties to a gang of thieves using the same tactics repeatedly, Erhart said.

On Aug. 30, also early in the morning and just six blocks away from the fatal shooting, a man matching Navarro’s description stole a car at gunpoint, Erhart said. The description of the car thief matched a police composite sketch of Berman’s killer that was based on Jimenez’s description.

Two days later, police and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies found the car taken in the Aug. 30 Santa Ana robbery, along with several other stolen vehicles, stripped of parts and dumped in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County near Lakewood.

Arrested in Paramount

Officials traced all the stolen cars back to similar gunpoint robberies.

“They were forcing people off the freeway off-ramps by boxing them in, robbing them at gas stations and even in their driveways--always with a gun,” Erhart said.

On Oct. 1, Navarro and four others were arrested in Paramount on suspicion of a separate car theft at gunpoint. Erhart was notified because of his standing request with Los Angeles officials to contact him whenever anyone using such tactics is arrested.

Erhart said the sheriff’s photograph of Navarro resembled the composite sketch prepared by Santa Ana police following Berman’s shooting death.

“He looked a lot like the composite,” Erhart said Tuesday.

On Oct. 6, as he was being released from the Los Angeles County Jail, Navarro was arrested by Santa Ana police on suspicion of the Aug. 30 robbery.

Navarro has been arraigned on the robbery charges, Erhart said, adding that he was being held without bail, pending the filing of murder charges in the Berman slaying.