Van Nuys : Man Gets Probation for Role in Murder

A 21-year-old Guatemalan man, who once faced murder charges for killing a fellow countryman who allegedly massacred his family, was placed on probation Friday by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Judith Ashmann.

Elmer Orellana, 21, faced a maximum 11-year state prison sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in March.

Orellana was 16 and living in the United States in 1990 when his father came from Guatemala and asked his son to accompany him to North Hollywood to avenge the deaths of seven family members, whose assassinations Orellana had witnessed.

Defense attorney Gerson Horn argued that Orellana’s father, now dead, forced the teen-ager to help with the murder. After the father shot the victim, Francisco Guillermo Noguera, twice in the chest, he told his son, “Shoot, coward. This is the guy who killed your mother,” Horn said.

Noguera and other men allegedly participated in the 1985 massacre of Orellana’s mother, paternal grandparents, uncle, aunt and two cousins in a Guatemalan village near the El Salvador border.

The massacre was believed to be a payback for a murder committed by Orellana’s father.

After his family was murdered, Orellana’s father hunted down the killers, and in turn was killed in Guatemala, allegedly by a family member of the man he shot in North Hollywood, about a year after that incident.

After his family’s massacre, Orellana came to the United States, where he had a minor criminal record.

In earlier court proceedings, Horn presented experts who testified that Orellana suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome after witnessing the murders of his family members.

An evaluation made by the California Youth Authority was also favorable, Horn said.

“His life has been filled with nothing but pain and misery since he was 11,” Horn said. “Judge Ashmann had the courage, compassion and insight to go along with a program to end the cycle and pain of violence.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Barshop argued in favor of a prison term.