Suspect Held in Slaying, Series of Car Thefts

A Paramount man suspected in a string of auto thefts at gunpoint was being held without bail in the Orange County jail after a witness identified him as the man who shot and killed her boyfriend, a popular Santa Ana nightclub disc jockey, authorities said Tuesday.

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

Berman and his girlfriend, Luz Maria Jimenez, were talking in the car, which was stopped in the 500 block of South Oak Street in Santa Ana, when a man approached and tried to open the door, police said. When Berman started the car and tried to escape, the man shot him once through the glass window and fled, police said. Berman died a day later.

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

On Aug. 30, just six blocks away from the site of 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, 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 that were stripped of parts and dumped in the Lakewood area. Authorities traced all the stolen cars back to similar gunpoint robberies.

On Oct. 1, Navarro and four others were arrested in Paramount on suspicion of a separate car theft at gunpoint, Erhart said. He said he was notified of the group’s arrest by Los Angeles County authorities. Santa Ana police subsequently arrested Navarro on suspicion of the Aug. 30 robbery, Erhart said.