Homicides in the County Drop Sharply in ’94 : Crime: Twenty-eight residents have been slain this year, down from 47 in 1993. But police report more ‘stranger’ slayings, reflecting a nationwide rise in gang activity.

As usual, neighbor killed neighbor, rival shot rival and man murdered wife in Ventura County in 1994. But far more victims are dying at the hands of strangers, law enforcement officials said.

A total of 28 county residents have been slain so far this year, a dramatic drop from the 47 homicides in 1993, which authorities said was an unusually violent year.

But it was not far from 1992’s total of 32 homicides, and officials called the drop-off just part of the roller-coaster pattern that homicide statistics tend to follow.

“People just didn’t go out and kill as many people. It goes like that,” said Coroner’s Investigator Mitch Breese. “There’s no set anything for homicides. They can be up for a while, they can be down for a while. . . . There’s no rhyme or reason for it.”

Over the years, the reasons for killing have become more haphazard, said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes.

“The motives often seem to be more trivial,” said Holmes, a veteran prosecutor who oversees the district attorney’s major crimes unit.

“There are more ‘stranger homicides’ than in the past, where the victim and the defendant are unknown to each other,” he said. “It’s random violence, as opposed to, ‘This had been building up and I couldn’t stand it any more.’ ”

The FBI report on 1993 crimes noted a sharp increase in random killings by strangers nationwide, partly due to an increase in gang crime.

“Every American now has a realistic chance of murder victimization in view of the random nature the crime has assumed,” the report said.

A respected Oxnard soccer coach died in just such a “stranger” shooting last summer, and police are still searching for the gang member who they suspect killed him.

Armando Balderama, 20, apparently grew upset that Roberto Leyva was looking at his sister while they dined at Topper’s Pizza Place in south Oxnard on July 10, police said. The two exchanged words inside the restaurant, and police say Balderama shot Leyva moments later in the parking lot.

A bullet pierced a major artery in Leyva’s stomach, and Leyva, a father of two, died 10 hours later.

Leyva’s death fits another pattern: Ventura County killers are using handguns more often than they used to, reflecting the rise in handgun ownership in the United States, Holmes said.

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Of the 28 homicides in 1994, 19 of the victims died in gunfire. That 70% proportion of the death toll tops the nationwide tally of 60% of homicide victims who are killed with bullets nationwide, according to a 1988 U.S. Department of Justice study.

Nearly all of the Ventura County gun deaths involved handguns.

One of the year’s most tragic slayings occurred in Thousand Oaks on July 13, when a 17-year-old boy playing with his father’s 9-millimeter, semiautomatic pistol shot his 16-year-old girlfriend in the eye.

Jacqueline Reay died in the incident. The boy, convicted as a juvenile, was sentenced to 10 1/2 years incarceration with the California Youth Authority. Authorities say he probably will serve time only until age 21.

In a case that diverges from the trend, another young victim died after being stabbed with a classmate’s knife at a Simi Valley junior high school.

Valley View Junior High students Phillip Hernandez and Chad Hubbard had quarreled in the past, but the rivalry went over the edge Feb. 1, when Phillip stabbed Chad to death in front of dozens of classmates as school let out. Phillip, convicted of involuntary manslaughter, was sentenced to four years in the California Youth Authority.

Not all the killings of 1994 were so clear-cut.

Some cases were closed within minutes by reliable eyewitnesses who helped police and prosecutors win swift convictions.

Some killers went to prison, some got away, and some are still awaiting their day in court.

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Other slayings remain mysteries.

And while one was a police shooting, most were crimes of anger, drunkenness, or as one veteran investigator put it, “irrational acts of stupidity.”

Here are the other Ventura County homicides of 1994:

* Roberto Ponce, 29, had beaten his girlfriend one too many times, Oxnard police said. When her 15-year-old son caught him lying on top of her Jan. 8 and preparing to strike her again, the youth picked up an ax handle and bludgeoned Ponce to death, police said. The district attorney decided not to file charges, ruling that the killing was justified.

* Thomas Shoop, 36, of Ventura died at home Feb. 20 after being violently kicked in the abdomen during a street robbery by Everado Mondragon, 35, and Jose Sanchez, 24. A judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge the two with homicide, but police and prosecutors say they believe the beating ruptured Shoop’s spleen and killed him.

* On March 5, the day after his truck was found abandoned in West Hollywood, Andy Lee Anderson, 24, and his dog were found shot to death at a remote Rose Valley campground. Timothy Chrestman, 19, of Port Hueneme faces a Jan. 3 trial for murder, robbery and auto theft charges that could put him in prison for life, prosecutors said.

* Police are still trying to learn who shot 21-year-old Eric Velasquez in the torso. He was killed March 7 in the parking lot of a Santa Paula apartment building after smashing some car windows. But there is no evidence tying the car to any suspects, police said.

* On March 26, members of Oxnard’s Surtown and Loma Flats gangs squared off in a Port Hueneme park, aimed handguns at each other and fired. Cesar Mata, 16, died, shot once in the chest. Prosecutors said they have declined to file charges because witnesses’ conflicting stories left them without enough evidence to prove the case.

* A short, unhappy marriage left Mina and Jose Castaneda of Santa Paula on the edge of divorce, but they reconciled the day before she was to file the papers.

Two days later, on April 2, Jose Castaneda, 26, left a birthday party and robbed a motel with a friend, prosecutors said. When he returned, he found his 25-year-old wife holding a baseball bat, angry because he had left the party. He shot her in the head during the ensuing argument, prosecutors said.

Castaneda was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison for murder under the state’s “three-strikes” law, invoked because he had two prior robbery convictions. He also received another 30 years for firearm-related charges.

* David Rubio, 19, borrowed a car from Donald Culbertson’s sister in Oxnard on April 10, but returned it late. That led to an argument, and Culbertson, 24, stabbed Rubio to death in an alley. Culbertson pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 19 years in prison for that and two assaults, a prosecutor said.

* Chased by police cruisers on April 25, Alfonso Bravo, 20, ditched the stolen Mustang he was driving and ran. Oxnard Police Officer Patrick Dolan, 29, chased Bravo over several fences. When he topped one wooden fence to find Bravo pointing a loaded 9-millimeter gun at him, Dolan dropped behind the fence and fired four shots through it, killing Bravo. The district attorney’s office ruled the shooting was justified.

* Ventura janitor John Edward Rios Jr. braked his family company’s van to a stop at a Ventura intersection April 26. A co-worker riding with him said that a dark-clad man in a ski mask walked in front of the van, drew close to the driver’s side, pulled out a handgun and shot Rios through the window. Rios died three days later, and police are still frustrated by the lack of solid leads, Ventura Police Lt. Brad Talbot said.

* After refusing to turn down the volume of music at his house May 8, Ventura landscaper Juan Vargas, 31, was shot to death by a drunk, angry neighbor at the Victorian Trailer Park, police said. The suspect, Raul Cervantes Viveros, 46, is at large, and police say they have been talking with the Mexican consulate in case he left this country.

* May 8, several weeks after Gary Michael Rose, 24, moved into the Oxnard home of his former fiancee, Victoria Ramey, 31, he shot her to death. Rose surrendered to police and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

* On May 12, Braulio Bojorquez, 25, a small-time El Rio dope dealer, was found trussed up with electrical cord and stabbed repeatedly in the head and back, authorities said. Ventura County sheriff’s detectives said they suspect he crossed someone in the violent, statewide Sinaloa Cowboys gang, but they have found no suspects.

* Navy plumber Thomas Shipley, 43, shot his wife, Linda, 40, in the chest May 13 at their Oxnard home, then shot himself. A relative said the two “looked so much in love,” but others told of Shipley’s bad temper and his habit of yelling at neighbors.

* Moises Galaviz, 41, stalked away from a drunken family argument near Santa Paula on May 30, returned with a gun and opened fire on his two brothers. Aurelio Galaviz was wounded, and Jose Galaviz, 35, died of a gunshot wound to his upper back. Judged mentally incompetent to stand trial, Moises Galaviz was sent to Patton State Psychiatric Hospital until he is able to face charges of murder and attempted murder, a prosecutor said.

* Standing in a friend’s kitchen in south Oxnard, someone fired through the window, shooting Ricardo Gonzales in the heart June 10. “There were absolutely no witnesses, nothing,” says Oxnard Police Detective Mike Palmieri.

* Rodney McClain was found slumped in an alley June 25, a single gunshot wound in his side. The Oxnard postal worker, 40, died en route to the hospital. Police say they have witnesses and are still working to find a suspect.

* Thomas Corral stormed into his ex-girlfriend’s Ventura apartment on July 21 and shot drifter Roger Rowland, 23, in the stomach once because he believed the two were dating, prosecutors have said. Corral faces a trial on murder charges Jan. 9 while a friend who accompanied him there, Ruben Viveros, 19, is serving prison time after pleading guilty to being an accessory to the killing.

* When Jesus Arredondo, 32, sent his friend out for beer Aug. 5, he asked for Budweiser. When Miguel Garabaldi, 39, returned, he brought Natural Light instead. Already drunk, the two quarreled and Garabaldi stabbed Arredondo in the stomach, a prosecutor said. Garabaldi faces a Jan. 17 murder trial.

* Port Hueneme grocer Mohinder Bassi, 42, was fatally stabbed in the chest Aug. 10. His employee, Adolfo Carrillo, 32, is to be tried Jan. 17 for murder.

* As he stood outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting near Cabrillo Village, Jose Gutierrez, 37, was hit in the heart by stray gunfire from a gang fight. Rudolfo Martinez, 21, faces a pretrial hearing Jan. 5 on murder charges.

* On Oct. 22, avid Moorpark gun collector Patrick Dattile dialed 911 to say that his wife had been shot and was bleeding to death. In mid-call, the police dispatcher heard a pop, and when police arrived at their home, they found Dattile, 33, lying dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound beside the body of his wife, Mary Dattile, 30.

“He had a habit of playing with guns and he had been drinking,” said Lt. Larry Robertson, head of the sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit.

* Zolly Terry, 21, of Oxnard, faces a murder trial on Feb. 6. Prosecutors say he shot Jerome Hurst, 25, to death on Oct. 24 and tried to kill another man who was romantically linked to Terry’s sister.

* Palmdale pipe layer Pedro Cervera, 28, was shot once in the head after a jealous man saw him and two fellow pipe layers talking with the man’s girlfriend Oct. 25, prosecutors said. David Lopez, 39, of Santa Paula is to be arraigned for murder Jan. 4.

* Stephanie Case, 42, of Ventura was found lying dead along an abandoned stretch of Old Rincon Highway on Oct. 29. Heavily intoxicated, she had been fatally struck by a car. Investigators say they have no leads to determine who is responsible for her death.

* And in the latest homicide, 24-year-old Martin Jesus Hidalgo was fatally stabbed just before midnight on Dec. 22 at an apartment in north Oxnard. Occupants of the apartment told police that Hidalgo and another man were intruders at the apartment. Other details remain sketchy, and the police investigation continues.

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Homicides by City

City ’93 ’94 Oxnard 19 10 Ventura 10 5 Port Hueneme 5 2 Santa Paula 2 3 Thousand Oaks 3 1 Moorpark* 3 1 Camarillo 1 0 Fillmore 1 0 Ojai 1 0 Simi Valley 0 1 Unincorporated areas 2 5 TOTAL 47 28

* Authorities believe that a body found near Moorpark in 1993 is that of a woman slain in Los Angeles.

Source: Ventura County law enforcement agencies