Mourning Family Says Feud Triggered Shooting : Investigation: Harvey Rosas is scheduled to be arraigned today. His nephew was shot while wrapping gifts with his grandmother.

Despite a serious two-year feud with his uncle, Steve Anthony Garcia wouldn’t have thought of missing his family’s annual Christmas Eve party at his grandmother’s home.

Garcia and his wife, Clara, drove straight through from Texas to make the event, arriving at 10:30 p.m. after more than a full day behind the wheel.

“He drove 27 hours from Texas just to come back in time for Christmas,” said Steve Garcia’s 15-year-old brother, Aaron.

A little more than an hour later, Steve Garcia was dead, allegedly shot in the back and head by the jealous uncle, Harvey Rosas, who emerged from his room and opened fire as Garcia sat in the kitchen wrapping gifts with his grandmother, authorities said.

“He never saw this guy coming with the gun,” Sgt. Dave Jensen said. “I don’t think there was any provocation. I think it happened because things had been brewing since [a] 1994 incident.”

After shooting Garcia, 23, the gunman stormed into the living room--where a handful of people, including two 6-year-olds, were gathered--and fired several shots at the ceiling, police said.

Police arrested the 34-year-old Rosas minutes later as he tried to leave in his car, which was blocked in the driveway by other vehicles. Rosas climbed out of the car with a handgun and dropped it on the lawn, Jensen said.

Police later searched the home where Rosas lived with his mother, Barbara Rosas, confiscating a .22-caliber revolver and several boxes of .38-caliber and 9-millimeter ammunition from the son’s bedroom, Jensen said.

Rosas was being held Tuesday on suspicion of murder. He is expected to be arraigned today at Municipal Court in Santa Ana, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum said.

Relatives told police investigators that Steve Garcia and Harvey Rosas had been feuding for a couple of years. Relations became worse in November 1994 when the two had a fistfight at another family party.

Garcia’s family contends that Rosas, Garcia’s paternal uncle, was envious of his nephew because he was well-liked and favored by relatives, detectives said.

“During the investigations, Rosas’ mother mentioned that there was jealousy between the two, especially on Rosas’ part,” Jensen said. “She said that Garcia was getting a little more attention and was favored in the family.”

Some family members described Rosas as a recluse who shunned family activities. They contended the shooting late Sunday was an act of revenge for the 1994 fight.

“This was just payback,” a sobbing Aaron Garcia said. “Harvey wasn’t out to hurt my brother. He was out to kill him.”

In a police report he filed, Harvey Rosas alleged that Steve Garcia was harassing a younger family member and made him cry during a family birthday party in November 1994.

When Rosas approached him, Steve Garcia became annoyed and hit him, cutting Rosas’ nose, according to the complaint. Steve Garcia was not arrested, records show.

After the fight, Steve Garcia refused to speak to his uncle whenever the family gathered, Aaron Garcia said.

Steve Garcia, the oldest of four sons, had returned Sunday from a trip to Texas where he met some of his wife’s relatives for the first time, said Clara Garcia, the victim’s 21-year-old wife.

The couple rushed to Orange County to visit Steve Garcia’s mother and grandmother for the family gathering, she recalled.

When they arrived, Clara Garcia said, she did not see Rosas, who has been living at Barbara Rosas’ home on the 1400 block of East Lomita Avenue for the past year.

“We didn’t see him all night,” she said. “He was in the bedroom the whole time.”

But just before midnight, Rosas came out of his room, entered the kitchen where Steve Garcia and Barbara Rosas sat, and pointed a semiautomatic gun at his nephew’s back, Jensen said.

One shot knocked Garcia to the ground. Two more rounds were fired into his head as Barbara Rosas watched in horror, Jensen said.

Barbara Rosas told police that her son “has been acting strange over the past several months, that he’s been distant and doesn’t talk to the family very much,” Jensen said.

“I still don’t understand why my own flesh and blood had to take my brother away,” Aaron Garcia said. “It’s like a bad nightmare.”

Steve Garcia’s wife and family spent Tuesday arranging his funeral service, which will be Thursday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Ana at 9 a.m.

The couple, who lived with Clara Garcia’s family in Irvine, had met seven years ago, when she was 14, and had been married for only 20 months, she said.

Both were full-time students at Irvine Valley College, where Clara Garcia is studying business. Steve Garcia had hoped to enter law school.

A grieving Clara Garcia turned her head from photos of her late husband as she recounted his life.

“He was my whole life,” Clara Garcia said. “We loved each other so much. We were so happy. . . . It’s going to be very hard to live without him.”