SAN CLEMENTE : Sister of Slaying Victim Recalls Little About What She Told Police

The sister of a teen-ager who died after a paint-roller rod pierced his skull during a confrontation last year at a San Clemente beach testified Thursday that she could not remember much about what she might have told police that fateful night.

The brief testimony of Shellie Woods, sister of victim Steve Woods, came Thursday as a trial for one of six defendants charged with the slaying continued in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. Juan Alcocer, 20, of San Clemente is charged with murder and other felony counts, including allegations that he is a gang associate.

Shellie Woods testified after being subpoenaed by the defense, which sought to question her about statements attributed to her in police reports about one of her brother’s companions possibly being intoxicated on the night of the Oct. 15, 1993, confrontation.

But Woods said she recalled very little about what she might have told police. “I was in crisis,” she testified, under questioning from defense attorney Gene E. Dorney.

She testified that the police report statement in question “didn’t even sound like it was coming from me.”

Under objections by Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary Paer, Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald blocked further questions on the issue.

Questions about who or what might have provoked the fatal confrontation between Alcocer and his friends and Steve Woods and his friends that night at Calafia Beach County Park were the focus of an earlier trial for two other defendants in the case.

The spearing took place as Woods and his friends were pelted with blocks of wood, paint-roller rods and other items as they tried to drive out of the only exit at the beach parking lot. Woods, 17, died about a month later, having never regained consciousness.