Boulevard Murder Case Unfolds

After a fistfight with a neighbor, Heather Rose allegedly asked a few friends over to her Newport Beach apartment Sept. 30. According to police, she told her roommate to expect some “guys coming over to protect them.”

A group of men started arriving in mid-afternoon. Police said they brought their weapons with them--baseball bats and sticks wrapped with tape. One man toted a gun.

Police say the group came to plot revenge on the neighbors. When two of the men living next door stepped out of the nearby apartment to go to the liquor store, they were attacked.

One of the men escaped. The other, John David Fahey, 21, was chased onto Balboa Boulevard, beaten with a bat and shot to death, according to police reports.

“He didn’t need to die. It was a senseless killing at the pleasure of those who did it,” said his mother, Carletta Fahey.

So far, police have arrested 10 suspects in connection with the killing. Police spokesman Sgt. Andy Gonis said that it has become the city’s biggest murder case in more than a decade.

“It is the most . . . people charged in connection with a single incident in recent memory,” Gonis said.

Besides Rose, the suspects include a UC Irvine sophomore, two alleged gang members awaiting trial in Long Beach in connection with a drive-by shooting, and a 17-year-old boy. Five of the suspects were arraigned Friday in Municipal Court in Newport Beach and a combined preliminary hearing was scheduled to start Oct. 30.

More arrests may follow, Gonis said. A dozen detectives have spent a week trying to pinpoint exactly who showed up at the gathering and what role they played, if any, in the slaying.

“We’re dealing with in excess of 20 people who were at that gathering at Rose’s house,” Gonis said. “We are getting many different stories from many people as we go about collecting evidence, and we’re still trying to determine who is responsible for what. We’re still trying to put together the puzzle.”

Police have determined that the case started as a dispute among neighbors.

According to police:

A woman staying in a nearby apartment said that the day before the murder, Rose, 21, got into a fight with her. At the time the woman was staying with a girlfriend and two men, Fahey and Brent Claxton, who is Rose’s ex-boyfriend. After the fight grew violent, Rose sought medical treatment and called police.

The next day, the woman who battled with Rose received a letter warning that there was “going to be trouble,” she later told police. The woman said she heard that Rose planned to use gang members to “take care of business.”

The score of people who started showing up at Rose’s apartment that afternoon came for different reasons. For instance, Robert Pimentel, 19, of Long Beach went to Newport Beach because he thought he simply would be attending a party with friends, according to his attorney.

And Richard Nagawa, 21, a UC Irvine sophomore majoring in social ecology, drove over with his girlfriend after Rose told him she suffered a broken nose when she was beaten up by some skinheads, his attorney said.

As they saw Rose’s friends arrive, Claxton and the woman with whom Rose had the fight went over to try to make peace. But the visit only led to more arguments. While there, they saw the bats and sticks leaning against the wall, according to the police report.

At 10 p.m., Claxton and Fahey left to go to the liquor store. When they saw the group of armed men coming after them, Claxton managed to get back in his apartment. But Fahey, who stands 6 feet, 3 inches tall, could not escape. He was chased down and killed.

Police received several calls and arrested some of the suspects as they left the scene. Others were arrested after questioning later in the week. Attorneys for Pimentel and Nagawa both say that while their clients attended the gathering, they did not participate in planning or executing the killings.

The two face charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Others charged with the same felony include Reynaldo Zepeda, 20, of Long Beach; Leroy Lujan, 29, of Carson; Roman M. Woolem, 20, of San Pedro, and Rose. The four facing murder charges are the 17-year-old juvenile; Larry Pena, 24, of Long Beach; Stanley Anaya, 20, of San Pedro, and Tito Huizar, 19, of Long Beach. Huizar and Zepeda are reputed gang members charged last December with conspiracy to murder a rival gang member in Long Beach, authorities said. They were free on $100,000 bail each on the previous charge at the time of the Sept. 30 killing, authorities said. Pena was recently released from the California Youth Authority, according to his mother.

Fahey’s parents, both former state corrections officials who live in Placentia, said their son was an avid sportsman who had moved out of the family home and in with Claxton and the two others five days before the shooting.

Carletta Fahey said her son was excited about assuming his own responsibility in his new home. “He was getting his life together, taking care of adult things,” his mother said. Her son had just decided to start attending college soon in order to land a decent job, Carletta Fahey said.

On the day of her son’s death, his mother said, he came by the family house to pick up some pictures to put on the wall of his new apartment.

“He took the dog for a walk,” Carletta Fahey recalled. “He came back, drank a glass of milk, kissed me goodby and said, ‘Mom, I’ll see you on Monday.’ Five hours later he was dead.”