Gang Member Guilty of Murdering Friend : Ventura: Jury rejects man’s claim that his shooting of lifelong companion was justifiable homicide.

In a crime that stretched from Las Vegas to Ventura and back again, a Ventura gang member was convicted of first-degree murder Friday for killing a lifelong friend in a dispute over a woman.

Thomas A. Corral, 23, conceded during his four-day Superior Court trial that he was Roger Rowland’s killer. But through his attorney, Corral claimed that the July 21 slaying was justifiable homicide, prompted by fear that the beer Rowland was holding was actually a gun.

Jurors, who deliberated two days, rejected that argument and found instead that Corral drove from Las Vegas to Ventura to kill his romantic rival, then immediately returned to Nevada to escape arrest. He was taken into custody three days later, when Las Vegas and Ventura investigators broke up what they suspected was a revenge plot aimed at Corral.

Rowland, 23, and the defendant were lifelong friends who attended the same Ventura schools and grew up to belong to the same gang, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory G. Phillips said. When Corral moved to Las Vegas to avoid arrest on a California warrant, he asked Rowland to take care of his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child, Melinda Corona, witnesses said.

Just hours before the murder, Corona told Corral on the telephone she was seeing Rowland, according to trial testimony. Corral then had fellow gang member Ruben Viveros, 19, drive him to Ventura so he could kill Rowland, Phillips said.

The pair arrived in Ventura about 10 p.m., and Corral made repeated calls to his ex-girlfriend at her Ventura apartment but never said he was in town, according to trial testimony. About midnight, Corral burst through the front door of Corona’s Kirk Avenue apartment and ran to the bedroom, where he found Rowland and Corona standing near each other.

Rowland was drinking a beer with a silver label, which Corral claimed he mistook for a gun.

Corral fired four shots, hitting Rowland once in the side. He died less than an hour later.

Although jurors were given the option of finding Corral guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, Phillips said he asked for a first-degree murder conviction because he believes the defendant planned the slaying as soon as he heard Rowland was dating Corona.

“He claimed he was there to get (Corona) and take her back to Las Vegas, but he never said that to her when he was talking to her on the phone,” the prosecutor said. “He always asked for Roger.”

Viveros, who drove Corral to and from Ventura, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Two Ventura men suspected of trying to carry out a revenge plot against Corral are being prosecuted in Las Vegas, Phillips said.

Judge Frederick A. Jones scheduled Corral’s sentencing May 4. Corral will receive 25 years to life in prison for the murder, and as much as 10 years may be added to the sentence because a gun was used, Phillips said.