Man Held in Slaying of Motel Resident in Front of 2 Boys

A 33-year-old Port Hueneme longshoreman was arrested on suspicion of slaying a construction contractor whose children were in the Oxnard motel room where the man was shot to death, police and neighbors said Tuesday.

Amilcar Joseph Mondesi Jr. was being held in the Ventura County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, a jail spokesman said.

Mondesi is suspected of shooting Ricardo Perea, 46, three times in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun about 7:50 p.m. Sunday at the Sunshine Inn in the 700 block of West Hueneme Road, authorities said. Perea, who hotel officials said lived on and off in one of the establishment’s $27-a-night rooms, died from the wounds less than an hour later at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, the coroner’s office said.

Mondesi and Perea both had lived at various times during the last year with a Port Hueneme woman in her Florence Avenue house, neighbors said.

Perea most recently checked into the motel Oct. 31 as Rick Houston and listed his address as the house on Florence Avenue that neighbors said Mondesi lately had been sharing with the woman. The woman asked Perea to move out about six months ago and Mondesi moved in later, said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified.

Oxnard detectives would not say why Perea was using an alias nor disclose the woman’s name.

Perea apparently was blasted with gunfire when he answered a knock on the door of his motel room, said motel resident Jack Ganza, who rushed to Perea’s room when he heard the shots. Ganza said he walked into the room and found Perez slumped against the bed where his two sons, ages 4 and 6, sat crying.

The boys later told police that they knew the man who shot their father and that they had once lived with him, Ganza said.

Mondesi worked periodically at the Port of Hueneme and Perea recently had been running a small contracting business doing home remodeling and rebuilding, neighbors said.

Detectives set up a surveillance of Mondesi’s Port Hueneme house at 1:30 p.m. Monday, said Lt. Robert Kelley of the Oxnard Police Department. When detectives Jim Seitz and Ed Neitzel saw Mondesi leaving the house, they followed his vehicle to Perkins Road and Cuesta Del Mar Drive in Oxnard, Kelley said.

With the help of officers from the Port Hueneme Police Department, Mondesi was arrested without incident, Kelley said. Mondesi was booked into the jail, Kelley said. No weapon was recovered, and an investigation is continuing.

Kelley said police are still working on motives for the shooting.

However, Perea’s sister Martha Perea, 36, of Santa Maria said she had heard that Perea and Mondesi were friends who had had a disagreement several weeks ago.

Mondesi came to Perea’s motel room, they had words and Mondesi opened fire, she said. She said she did not know what the argument was about.

She said that Perea’s two sons were in the room and that the older boy identified Mondesi for police. Martha Perea said she wasn’t sure where the children are now.

She said her brother was a landscaper and construction worker who had lived in the Oxnard area for more than a year. She and her brother grew up in a family of eight in Santa Maria, she said.

Ricardo Perea also had two daughters and a son, all in their mid-20s, from his first marriage, Martha Perea said. He was divorced from his second wife and had custody of his two young sons.

“He really loved them a lot,” Martha Perea said. “He’d do anything for those boys.”

Christopher Pummer contributed to this report.