Witness Says Suspect in Slaying Was Given Ride : Moorpark: Loren Hilliard insists he and friends picked up James Linkenauger in an area where the body was found.

A key witness against a Moorpark man charged with murdering his wife testified Wednesday that he and two friends picked up the defendant walking away from the area where the victim’s body was later found.

Despite persistent challenges by the defense to his identification, Loren G. Hilliard insisted that defendant James M. Linkenauger was the one who sat next to him for 15 minutes while the pair rode down California 118 into Moorpark.

“I could guarantee that was him,” said Hilliard, a former Moorpark resident who now lives in Mojave.

Hilliard said he was a passenger in the car that picked up the rain-soaked Linkenauger in the early hours of Jan. 18, just east of Balcom Canyon Road. Hilliard testified that he and two friends were on their way home to Moorpark after spending the evening drinking beer. He said they saw Linkenauger walking in the rain and pulled over because they felt sorry for him.

The driver of the car, Jason Vargas of Search Light, Nev., gave a much less positive identification of Linkenauger during his testimony. He is scheduled to be cross-examined by the defense today.

Linkenauger, 38, is charged with murdering his wife of two years, JoAnn Linkenauger, 39, by choking and beating her during a drunken rage shortly after she returned home from a trip to Las Vegas on Jan. 17. Her semi-nude body was found in a barranca along Donlon Road in Somis, a street that runs into California 118.

JoAnn Linkenauger’s car was found stuck along the side of the road near the body.

Hilliard testified that Linkenauger did not say much during the drive into Moorpark. He said he was on foot because his car had broken down in Somis and he couldn’t get it started.

Linkenauger asked to be dropped off at a grocery store about a block from his home, Hilliard said.

A few days later, Hilliard testified, he called police after recognizing Linkenauger’s photograph in the newspaper and an accompanying article identifying him as a suspect in the slaying of his wife.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Louis B. Samonsky Jr. pointed out several discrepancies between Hilliard’s early descriptions of the man to police and his testimony in court.

For example, Hilliard initially told detectives that the man had sandy blond hair, but in court he said the man’s hair was gray. Linkenauger has salt-and-pepper hair.

In his description to police, Hilliard inaccurately described Linkenauger’s beard as a goatee. He also insisted that a full moon helped him see the defendant clearly in the car. Samonsky pointed out there was only a one-eighth moon the night of the incident.

While Hilliard conceded the discrepancies in his description, he stuck with his identification of Linkenauger as the person who was given the ride that night.

Investigators believe JoAnn Linkenauger was killed at the home she shared with her husband on Flory Avenue in Moorpark, and that her body was driven to Somis where it was dumped.

Fred Serame, who discovered the body across the street from his house the afternoon of Jan. 18, testified that he first saw JoAnn Linkenauger’s car parked on the shoulder of Donlon Road when he picked up his newspaper about 6:30 a.m. that day.

He said he later crossed the street to get rocks to stop some erosion on his property. When he reached the edge of the barranca, he said, “I noticed feet sticking up in the air.”

Serame said he heard no commotion during the preceding night to indicate when the car was parked on the side of the road. He testified that the vehicle had not been there when he came home at 10 p.m. the night before.