SANTA PAULA : Jury Might Get Murder Case Today

A jury is expected to begin deliberations today in the murder trial of a Santa Paula man accused of fatally shooting one of his cousins and seriously wounding another.

Arturo Tellez, 26, was charged with one count of murder and one count of attempted murder after a June, 1991, shooting in Teague Park in Santa Paula that left Javier Tellez Garcia dead and Jose Tellez Vasquez permanently injured.

Tellez “was just picking them off in that park as though they were ducks on a pond,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Nelson told the jury in her final argument Monday in Ventura County Superior Court.

“He went to that park specifically and intentionally to kill his cousins,” she said.

But defense attorney Joseph H. Lax told the jury the shooting culminated years of threats and intimidation directed by the victims at his client. Tellez was overcome by fear after his cousins confronted him in a supermarket parking lot hours before the shooting, Lax said.

“This time they pushed him over the line,” Lax said. “It went on and on, but this day it was too much.”

Tellez could receive life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder. His brother, Jesus Tellez, was convicted of first-degree murder earlier this year for driving his brother to and from the park. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Both of the Tellez brothers fled the state after the 1991 shootings. Jesus Tellez was arrested in Texas a year later and Arturo Tellez was apprehended earlier this year in Denver, Colo.

The panel will begin deliberations following instructions to the jury by Judge Charles R. McGrath.