COUNTYWIDE : Judge Orders Trial of 3 in Murder Case

Three reputed gang members were ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges of murdering a teacher’s aide who refused to give them her car.

Municipal Judge Michael Beecher’s decision to order the trial was based largely on the testimony given earlier this week by a former defendant in the case.

In exchange for a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, Christopher F. Martinez, 19, of Santa Ana testified that the alleged triggerman confessed to the Westminster shooting after it happened.

Enough evidence was presented in the preliminary hearing to show “that all three be held to answer as charged,” Beecher ruled in Municipal Court in Westminster.

Janet L. Bicknell, 49, of Westminster, who worked as a playground supervisor at a Huntington Beach school, was fatally shot in the head inside her car while returning home from a grocery store Aug. 6.

Enrique M. Segoviano, 18, of Santa Ana, Antonio E. Gonzalez, 21, and his 16-year-old brother, Edel, both of Westminster, and a 14-year-old boy from Santa Ana have been charged with murder, street terrorism and conspiracy to commit a drive-by shooting.

Segoviano, the alleged gunman, and Edel Gonzalez are also charged with murder with a special circumstance. The 16-year-old is the first county juvenile to be tried on a special-circumstance charge, according to the prosecuting attorney, Deputy Dist. Atty. John A. Anderson.

If convicted, he and Segoviano would face life imprisonment without possibility of parole. If convicted, the others would face 25 years to life in prison.

The 14-year-old is being tried in Juvenile Court. Martinez testified that he and the defendants, who he said are also members of the Santa Ana 5th Street Gang, had been drinking beer and spraying graffiti that night.

The group decided to steal a car, he said, and use it to commit a drive-by shooting in the territory of the rival 17th Street Gang. They waited at Bowling Green Park in Westminster and planned to stop the next oncoming car, he testified.

Martinez also testified that Segoviano owned the murder weapon and that as Gonzalez drove the group away after the shooting, Segoviano admitted shooting Bicknell because she resisted.

Authorities found her slumped against her steering wheel, fatally shot in the head.

Antonio Gonzalez’s attorney, Jerome J. Goldfein, argued Wednesday that his client was only a witness to the shooting and should not be charged with either murder or conspiracy.

Anderson, however, countered that Gonzalez should be held liable for the slaying because he knew about the murder weapon and was the driver of the getaway car.

“That’s much more than simply giving (the others) a ride,” the prosecutor said. “That’s giving a group of armed marauders a ride . . . to commit a drive-by.”

The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 18 in Superior Court in Santa Ana.