15-Year-Old Guilty, Faces Life for O.C. Murder

A 15-year-old boy was found guilty Tuesday in the murder of a Seal Beach gas-station clerk, becoming the first juvenile in Orange County convicted under a new state law that allows children as young as 14 to be punished as adults for the most serious crimes.

Mario Luis Ortiz, a baby-faced member of a Long Beach gang, faces up to 38 years to life in state prison when sentenced in January by Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore.

Ortiz, who was 14 when the crime occurred, was charged as an accomplice during a robbery at an Arco station. He was not the gunman; a 19-year-old companion was convicted last week of firing the fatal shots.

Ortiz was prosecuted under a law, in effect since January, that lowered to 14 the age at which youths can be tried and punished as adults for crimes such as murder and robbery. The age limit previously was 16.

The law is part of a national movement targeting juvenile crime that some critics say puts too much emphasis on prison instead of rehabilitation.

But the mother of slain night clerk Danette Garrett said she was glad Ortiz was charged as an adult.

“He acts like a very immature little boy. But he did an adult job. It’s very cold--and for a child,” said Joann Garrett, who lives in Redlands.

Jurors deliberated 75 minutes before convicting Ortiz of murder and robbery, plus related allegations that he used a handgun and sought to benefit his gang. The jury foreman said jurors knew the defendant’s age, but not that he was the county’s youngest murder defendant tried in adult court.

“It’s a sad state of affairs that somebody of this age could commit a crime of that nature,” said jury foreman John Woelfel, 35, a Santa Ana bridge engineer.

Woelfel said he supports the new law.

“I think it sends a strong message to youth,” he said.

Ortiz admitted his role as accomplice on tape and his lawyer challenged only a charge that the robbery was done to benefit the gang.

Ortiz and Oscar Lemus, 19, confronted Garrett, who was working the night shift, and stole $160 in cash and sundries such as batteries, condoms and sunflower seeds.

Lemus, convicted as the gunman during a separate trial, faces up to life without possibility of parole because the murder included a special circumstance--it took place during a robbery. As a juvenile, Ortiz was ineligible for that special circumstance charge.

The 33-year-old clerk was found slain early in an upstairs office of the gas station on Pacific Coast Highway. Authorities said she had been chased up the stairs and shot three times. Telephones and a computer printer also were discovered missing and gang graffiti was scrawled on a wall and door upstairs.

There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting. But a fingerprint left on a packet of sunflower seeds found on the floor was traced to Ortiz. Police who searched his home also found batteries and condoms from the store, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Vickie L. Hix.

Ortiz implicated Lemus as the gunman and admitted his role in the robbery during a two-hour taped statement to police that was played during his trial. Ortiz said he persuaded Garrett to open the door because she recognized him from earlier visits and was “nice and sweet,” Hix said. Lemus also slipped inside and pointed the gun at Garrett, who fled upstairs.

A girlfriend of Lemus testified that the suspects and a second girlfriend had been at the beach before stopping for snacks. She said Lemus pulled a gun from a secret compartment in the car before going inside.

Although Lemus was prosecuted as the shooter, Ortiz was accused of helping plan the holdup and taking part in it.

“The defendant is just as guilty as if he chased her and pulled the trigger three times,” Hix told jurors during her closing argument.

The defense lawyer contested only an allegation that the crime was committed to benefit the gang to which Lemus and Ortiz belonged. The gang allegation was important because it could have affected Ortiz’s possible parole date.

“This was a terrible crime,” said defense attorney Dennis M. McNerney. “This was just stupid, crazy, senseless.”

Hix said the murder was “an incredibly tragic case” that left an innocent woman dead and provided a textbook use for the new state law.

If Ortiz is sentenced as an adult and judged suitable for housing in the California Youth Authority, he could served his time there until age 25, and then be moved to state prison for the rest of his term. He would not be eligible for parole for 27 years.

“They’re not going to be back out on the street in 11 years killing somebody else,” Hix said.