Ex-Girlfriend Finds Man Shot to Death : Port Hueneme: The 33- year-old victim was in a closet in his apartment on Jane Drive. It is the city’s first homicide this year.

The body of a Port Hueneme man who was shot several times was discovered Friday afternoon by his ex-girlfriend in his studio apartment, authorities said. It was the city’s first homicide this year.

Port Hueneme police did not release the victim’s identity Friday night.

But the woman who found him said he was a 33-year-old roofer who had moved to Port Hueneme from Oxnard about 2 1/2 months ago.

In an interview outside the apartment complex where she found the victim, Isabel Chavez, 22, said friends of her ex-boyfriend asked her to check on him, saying he was not answering the door in his ground-floor apartment in the 800 block of Jane Drive.

When Chavez went to the apartment about 3:15 p.m., she found the front door slightly ajar and the television on.

She discovered him slumped inside a closet and saw five or six bullet holes in the closet door, which was open.

After police roped off the scene Friday night, more than a dozen residents stood in the yard of the apartment complex, a set of older, two-story buildings that span about one-third of a block.

Small children on bicycles and on foot weaved among the small crowd as neighbors discussed the incident.

Several neighbors said the victim had about four or five friends visiting his apartment until at least 9 p.m. Thursday.

Some neighbors said they heard gunshots about 9, while others said they heard shots a few hours later.

Lucy De La Cruz said she heard shots around 11 p.m. but didn’t call police because gunshots are not unusual in the lower-income neighborhood.

“There’s always lots of little things going on around here,” she said, adding that street gangs are active in the area.

De La Cruz and other neighbors said the victim was a friendly man and often had visitors, including a new girlfriend who had been living with him for about a week.