VENTURA : Man to Be Tried in Parking Lot Attack

A Ventura man who allegedly stabbed a traveler in the neck without provocation was ordered held for trial on a charge of attempted murder.

Municipal Court Judge Bruce A. Clark ordered Gene Ebright, 21, to stand trial in Superior Court on charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily injury in the July 19 attack.

Clark’s order Friday followed a preliminary hearing during which the alleged victim, Jack Landry, testified.

Landry, 31, of Newport Beach, testified that Ebright approached him with a knife in the parking lot of Carrow’s Restaurant in Ventura. Landry said he and his friend Sean Walsh were in the lot sipping coffee and were planning to drive on to Solvang.

When Walsh said hello and waved, Ebright began insulting and taunting the men and making obscene remarks about their mothers, Landry testified.

When the two friends ignored Ebright’s offer to fight in the parking lot, Ebright got into a car and left, Landry testified.

The car stopped before leaving the parking lot, Landry said.

“I saw the metallic flash of a knife and he came back to me at a run,” Landry said. “He hit me in the rib cage, and then he hit me up in the neck.”

Ebright fled, and Landry was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for cut rib muscles and the stab wound that narrowly missed an artery in his neck, Landry testified.

Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson said that none of the testimony showed that Ebright intended to kill Landry.

Ebright is being held on $50,000 bond pending arraignment in Superior Court, scheduled for Sept. 27.