Tempers Flare After Jury Convicts Man of Murder : Courts: Victim’s supporters heckle defendant as he is led away. Deputies have to restrain both sides.

In a verdict that sparked an unusually emotional courtroom confrontation, a Ventura County jury Tuesday convicted a Port Hueneme man of murdering a Simi Valley fisherman and his dog in the mountains above Ojai.

Deliberating only one day, the jury found Timothy E. Chrestman guilty of first-degree murder, robbery, grand theft and cruelty to an animal.

As deputies led the 20-year-old defendant to a holding cell following the hearing, friends and family of the victim--24-year-old Andy Lee Anderson--stared him down and chanted, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”

The jeering set off some Chrestman supporters on the other side of the courtroom--including his brother Billy, 21, and a young male cousin. They jumped up and moved toward the hecklers.

But they were restrained long enough for court deputies to usher the Anderson group out of the room and into the district attorney’s office.

“That’s the most emotion I’ve seen a jury verdict generate in the 23 years I’ve been here,” Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes said. “This was obviously a very hard-fought case. I think the verdict was a very sound one.”

The victim’s girlfriend and parents--mainstays in the courtroom throughout the five-week trial--greeted the verdict with joy.

“We’re just ecstatic that justice has been served,” said Lori Quinn, 23, whom Anderson had planned to marry.

“I know that no other mother will have to go through what I went through over the last year because of Chrestman,” added Anderson’s mother, Carolyn, holding back tears.

Chrestman, who testified on his own behalf and denied killing Anderson, will face life in prison without the possibility of parole at sentencing, set March 22. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

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Chrestman’s father sharply criticized the verdict and insisted that his son is being framed by dishonest Ventura County sheriff’s investigators who are only interested in closing their case.

“I cannot believe that people on the jury could go out and convict somebody with all the truth pointing away from him,” Ed Chrestman said, standing under a bright, hot sun in the courthouse parking lot after the verdict.

The father also repeated a defense assertion that Anderson was gunned down by two Latino gang members, one of whom then kidnaped his son at knifepoint and forced him drive to West Hollywood.

Tuesday’s verdict ended an intense trial highlighted by a rancorous cross-examination of the defendant by Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Calvert.

From opening statement to closing argument, Calvert portrayed Chrestman as a jobless, pot-smoking dreamer who killed Anderson and his dog for a simple reason: to steal the victim’s pickup.

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Anderson had been on a two-day fishing outing at Middle Lions Campground north of Ojai when he was slain March 4. His 1987 Toyota truck was later found abandoned in West Hollywood. Witnesses told deputies that two men ran from the truck after being chased briefly by another vehicle.

Inside Anderson’s truck, investigators recovered a .20-gauge shotgun, a small-caliber rifle and wallet--all belonging to Chrestman, according to testimony.

Chrestman initially told investigators that a man named Angel shot Anderson. But later, during an hours-long interrogation, he confessed to the shooting, claiming that it was an accident.

Calvert, however, called Chrestman a liar--noting that the victim had been shot in the back. Chrestman dragged Anderson’s body into some brush and then shot Sheila, the victim’s Australian shepherd, before going off to party with a friend in the stolen truck, Calvert argued.

Chrestman had been dropped off at the campground with instructions from his father to ponder his future, according to testimony.

And defense attorney Steve Pell said that was exactly what the defendant had done, until he ran into Angel and another man.

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Pell described Chrestman sympathetically in court, calling the defendant a “perpetual victim” who was first abused by Angel and then by Susan Creede and Patrick Buckley, the Ventura County sheriff’s detectives who investigated the case.

“There’s not one cruel, vicious, nasty type of bone in Timothy Chrestman’s body,” Pell said in his final argument.

The jury, however, took little time in returning its unanimous guilty verdict--a decision that sent emotions flying in the third-floor courtroom of Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr.

The panel, which declined afterward to comment on its verdict, had been deliberating only about a full day when it came to a decision Tuesday morning.

In the hour before the verdict was read, Campbell’s courtroom quickly filled with supporters from both sides, and other curious lawyers and courthouse employees--most from the district attorney’s office.

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A group of 16 Chrestman backers squeezed into the first two rows of benches behind the defendant--an area designed to hold only 14 people. Throughout the trial, they wore green shirts, and Tuesday was no exception.

Green, they explained, is the “color of hope.”

Anderson’s parents, his girlfriend and six other supporters gathered on the opposite side of the wood-paneled room.

The verdict was first read silently by Campbell, who then gave the jury verdict slip to court Clerk Carol Conigilo and instructed her to read the verdict aloud.

As soon as Conigilo announced Chrestman guilty on each count--save an unrelated charge of petty theft for allegedly stealing a pair of binoculars--loud sobs emerged from supporters on both sides.

“We love you, Timmy!” one Chrestman supporter shouted as the defendant was being led away amid loud taunts from the Anderson crowd.

“Stay up!” encouraged another.

Chrestman’s grandmother, Frances Moser, mistook a district attorney’s investigator for the county’s chief prosecutor, Michael D. Bradbury.

“They lied, Mr. Bradbury. They lied,” she said to the investigator, Alan Siemans, who brushed off the comments.

Outside court, Pell expressed disappointment in the verdict.

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He contended that Chrestman would never have confessed to the murder had Creede and Buckley given him food and water after his arrest. Chrestman had gone 3 1/2 days without any sustenance, Pell said, and admitted to the crime because he was hungry, thirsty and sleepy.

“I think innocent people do spend their lives in prison, and Tim Chrestman is going to suffer from the detectives here having no interest in finding out the truth,” Pell said.

Reached at sheriff’s headquarters, Buckley denied the allegations.

After Chrestman voluntarily showed detectives where he had hidden Anderson’s body, the defendant was fed at McDonald’s before being booked on suspicion of murder, he said.

“When they personally attack the police, the case is usually pretty good,” Buckley said.

Calvert was on vacation and did not attend the verdict hearing.