VENTURA : Shooting Victim Identified as Drifter

A man fatally shot in a Ventura apartment house was identified Wednesday as a 23-year-old drifter named James Vleck who grew up in Oxnard’s Silver Strand area and reappeared there a week ago, authorities said.

Ventura police and coroner’s officials made the identification late Tuesday after combing the Silver Strand area and talking with surfers, skateboarders and business owners. A woman who said she was a friend of Vleck’s family recognized a picture of him, Sgt. Bob Anderson said.

Buzz Ennis, an Oxnard realtor whose brother was once married to Vleck’s mother, said James Vleck left Silver Strand when he was 12 or 13 and moved to Albuquerque, N.M. There, Ennis said, Vleck began using drugs and “running with the wrong crowd.”

“I think he was in and out of drug programs when he was out in New Mexico,” Ennis said.

Anderson said Vleck also lived for a while in San Diego.

Police focused on the Silver Strand area Tuesday after a crude tattoo was found on Vleck’s body with the letters SSL, which stand for the group Silver Strand Locals, authorities said.

Police do not know why Vleck returned to Ventura County one week ago or why he began harassing a 21-year-old Ventura woman he met 24 hours before being shot.

The shooting occurred in a Victorian-style apartment house at 670 E. Thompson Blvd. shortly before 7 p.m. Monday. Vleck was shot once in the chest by 29-year-old Anthony Dean Soto of Ventura, who is the boyfriend of a woman living in the apartment.

Soto was brought to the apartment because the women were scared of Vleck, who had appeared at their doorstep numerous times Monday and had threatened the 21-year-old woman after crawling through her kitchen window, police said.

Ventura police plan to take the case to the district attorney’s office to determine whether Soto fired the shot in self-defense. No arrests have been made.

Vleck’s mother, Rebecca Dixon, lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., but it is unclear whether Vleck had a permanent residence there, Anderson said.