Oceanside Murder Case Goes to Jury

Jurors began deliberations Tuesday in the murder trial of a reputed one-time Oceanside gang member accused of gunning down a 14-year-old high school freshman outside a fast-food restaurant.

During closing arguments, Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Walden repeatedly pointed at defendant Akeli (Junior) Kelly and exhorted the jurors to hold Kelly responsible for the Oct. 1 murder of Michele Tate.

“Mr. Kelly made a fatal and stupid act that night, and a little girl lost her life,” Walden told the jurors. Kelly, 21, is on trial in the shooting death of Tate and the wounding of another girl in front of Alberto’s Mexican restaurant in east Oceanside. Police believe Kelly, allegedly a former member of the Deep Valley Bloods, was aiming at members of a rival gang when he inadvertently shot the El Camino High School student.

The prosecution has alleged that Kelly had a long-running dispute with members of an Oceanside gang and fired a rifle from an apartment complex across the street from the restaurant.

Walden said that Kelly mistook Tate for a member of the gang, since she was wearing a bright blue jacket belonging to one of the gang members.

Prosecution witnesses had also testified that Kelly was brandishing a rifle in the days before the homicide and, on the day of the shooting, had said he “would sure like to take some of them out,” referring to the gang members.

Several witnesses said they saw Kelly, or a person matching Kelly’s description, carrying a rifle towards the place where the shooting is believed to have taken place.

The weapon used in the incident has not been found, and defense attorney Jack Campbell claimed that prosecution witnesses gave contradicting testimony regarding the clothing of the killer and where Kelly was at the time of the shooting.

Campbell said the prime suspect to the killing should have been one of Kelly’s best friends, Talofa Finauga, who testified that Kelly admitted shooting Tate. Campbell also argued that other possible scenarios of the killing, including a drive-by shooting, were not fully investigated by Oceanside police.

“Those are perfectly reasonable, plausible, and likely hypotheses in this case, but they were all ignored,” Campbell told the jury. “There are a multitude of reasonable interpretations that point away, far away, from Junior Kelly.”

The two-week trial has been marred by threats against three members of the jury and Judge J. Morgan Lester last Wednesday. At least one woman juror allegedly was followed home by a carload of people, and two others were reportedly also followed. The judge did not elaborate on the threat against him.

Walden, upon hearing of the threats, requested a mistrial, but the defense objected. Lester, after individual interviews with each juror, determined that there was “no factual basis . . . that they cannot be fair or impartial,” and denied the request.