Trial of Men Accused in 2 Slayings Starts Today : Courts: The three are suspected of killing a policeman and a store owner during a string of armed robberies.

More than two years have passed since Officer John Hoglund’s love affair with law enforcement ended violently outside a Maywood market.

Gunned down as he arrived in response to a silent burglar alarm, Hoglund didn’t even have a chance to draw his gun. He died inside his patrol car.

Authorities say the slaying was the work of at least three men who are responsible for an armed robbery rampage throughout Los Angeles that included the fatal shooting of Lee Chul Kim, a Van Nuys market owner.

Prosecutors will re-create the killings of Hoglund and Kim for a Los Angeles jury this week, when the murder trial is scheduled to begin for Jose Contreras, Benjamin Alberto Navarro and Edgardo Sanchez Fuentes.

In addition to murder, the men face as many as 31 other charges stemming from seven robberies of markets and restaurants from Van Nuys to Paramount, in a crime run that began on New Year’s Eve, 1991.

With the images of Hoglund’s assailants clearly captured on a security videotape from inside the store, the jurors “will be able to identify the defendants,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Grosbard, one of two prosecutors assigned to the case.

Prosecutors say they are seeking the death penalty against all three men, each in his early 20s and from Central America, in the Hoglund shooting. Fuentes and Contreras also face death if convicted of killing Kim at his Woodley Market on May 4, 1992.

Kim, 49, had gone to the bank to make a large cash withdrawal, which was routine because he operated a check-cashing booth in his store. Prosecutors allege that Fuentes, Contreras and two other robbers were in the store when Kim returned, and that they shot and killed him during a struggle.

“He was hit about a dozen times,” Grosbard said. “It all happened in the freezer of the store, so they were within feet of him.”

Hoglund was shot less then a month later, and police noticed similarities between the two killings, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Speer, the other prosecutor. Detectives used the videotape from the Maywood market to get still photos of the suspects, which were used to identify them.

Hoglund, 46, was the first officer in the history of the Maywood Police Department to be killed in the line of duty. He was shot in the head and chest as he stepped from his patrol car on May 29, 1992, investigators said.

“After they shot the cop they turned the gun on an eyewitness who was five feet away, but the gun was out of bullets,” Grosbard said.

Two defense attorneys said they do not plan to call their clients to testify; some attorneys said they will try to minimize the nature of their clients’ involvement in the murders in hopes of averting a death sentence.

With the prosecution in possession of the store’s security videotape, “the big question is going to be life or death,” said James Coady, a deputy public defender representing Fuentes, Hoglund’s alleged assailant.

“If the prosecution can’t prove that Fuentes is the actual shooter, it could be tough for a jury to come back with the death penalty,” Coady said.

Navarro’s attorney, Eric K. Davis, described his client as the “lookout” during the Maywood robbery, one who could not have been involved in the shooting because he fled after he spotted Hoglund.

“He never even saw the police officer get shot,” Davis said.

James P. Leonard, an attorney representing Contreras, said he will acknowledge that his client is “a robber, but not a murderer” during the trial.

“Our position is that he did not kill anyone,” Leonard said.

Grosbard said that during the robberies, some of the defendants hit employees over the head with their guns, and used stun guns to persuade other employees to hand over money.

A fourth suspect, Oscar Paredes, who was arrested in March in connection with the Hoglund shooting, is awaiting trial, Grosbard said. Two other suspects remain at large.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin today.

Defense attorneys said they plan to introduce testimony about their clients that they hope the jury will consider when deciding their fates.

Navarro was abandoned by his parents as a child, grew up amid the war in El Salvador, and came to the United States in the late 1970s, Davis said.

Despite cultural differences, “he is willing to pay for his responsibility,” Davis said. “But he’s in a position where they are trying to exact a price that is too high.”

Said Leonard of Contreras: “I think when the jury hears all the evidence about his life and history, they will see him not in the light of just a robber, but also as a person with redeeming features.”

Fuentes, who like Contreras is from Honduras, was forced to drop out of school in the third grade to peddle newspapers to help support his family, Coady said.

“He has a better philosophy of life than me,” the attorney said. “He’s more accepting of whatever is in store for him than I am.”