‘Dragon Lady’ Heals a Girl’s Grief

One month after her dog Muneca was shot in the back and had to be put to death, 13-year-old Margarita Gonzalez cuddled a new puppy Wednesday, given her by the notoriously tough deputy district attorney who prosecuted the gunman.

That was shortly after Juan Vasquez Delacruz, 21, who shot the dog, was sent to state prison for three years for violating a condition of probation--possessing a weapon--from a previous robbery conviction.

“I hate him,” Margarita said softly outside the Van Nuys courtroom where the penalty against Vasquez was handed down by Superior Court Judge Raymond Mireles.

He was charged with a probation violation instead of the shooting because authorities said that charge was easier to prove and that a probation hearing was quicker than a full-scale trial and led to an equal, if not stiffer, punishment.

For more than three hours after the sentencing, Margarita patiently waited in the courthouse while prosecutor Lea Purwin D’Agostino’s husband, Joseph, searched two animal shelters for a white, furry canine that resembled her lost pet.

He finally settled on a four-month-old Lhasa Apso.

Her eyes brimming with tears, Margarita wrapped her arms around her new companion and rubbed her face in its long, tangled fur.

“Ahh, shh, it’s OK, it’s OK,” she whispered, trying to calm the quivering dog that she named Snow White. “She’s so cute,” Margarita said. “Thank you.”

It was a new role for D’Agostino, who prides herself on her nickname of “The Dragon Lady,” given her for tenacious prosecution in cases such as the “Twilight Zone” trial.

“The child lost her dog,” D’Agostino said. “I think anyone would do that. How could you not?”

Margarita’s previous pet, whose name meant “doll” in Spanish, was shot about 1 p.m. July 23, the day Vasquez was released from County Jail after serving 90 days on a battery conviction unrelated to the robbery conviction.

Vasquez, of Van Nuys, told authorities that he fired the gun to see if it worked but never intended to hit the dog, court documents showed.

However, Carlos Deharo, whom Vasquez blamed for sending him to jail on the battery charge, provided a different account, according to the prosecutor and police reports.

Deharo, 27, told investigators that Vasquez approached him in front of Margarita’s Van Nuys home, placed a .22-caliber revolver against his cheek and pulled the trigger. Deharo, who is a friend of the Gonzalez family, said the hammer snapped on an empty chamber and the pistol did not fire.

Deharo asked if the gun was real and Vasquez replied, “Yes . . . I’ll show you it’s a real gun,” according to statements Deharo made to police. Vasquez then raised his hand, pointed the revolver at Muneca and fired, Deharo said.

Deharo told police that Vasquez was laughing as he hid the weapon behind a truck in the driveway.

Margarita said she was watching television in her house when “I heard the shot. I thought somebody hit my dog. It was crying.”

She said she ran outside and saw Muneca cowering under her father’s truck. The bullet had lodged close to the dog’s spine, and it was put to death later that day at the East Valley Animal Shelter, said Elaine Dewberry, a Los Angeles police officer.

But by Wednesday afternoon, it was Snow White, and not the shooting, that filled Margarita’s thoughts. She picked the dirt from its fur, decided after some deliberation that she would buy a blue collar instead of a pink one and promised the dog it could sleep with her as soon as it had a bath.