Man Pleads Guilty to Slaying During Spree

Tearfully admitting to his role in a 30-minute crime spree that ended with the fatal shooting of a Moorpark motorist, a 20-year-old Camarillo man pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder.

Miguel Castro also pleaded guilty to firing into an occupied dwelling and faces a minimum term of 18 years in prison when he is sentenced March 1.

Defense attorney Robert Willey said drugs and alcohol played a major role in the Dec. 3 spree, which started with the attempted robbery of a Camarillo Taco Bell and ended with the apparently random slaying of Jesus Zamudo Manjarrez. Four people are charged in the spree, but Castro admitted to firing the fatal shot.

Castro and three teenagers, whom investigators described as “hard-core” gang members, were arrested shortly after Manjarrez was shot as he waited in his car at a stoplight. Investigators said Manjarrez was mistaken as a rival gang member.

Willey said Castro and his three co-defendants drank heavily, smoked marijuana and snorted methamphetamine before embarking on the crimes that included a drive-by shooting in Camarillo and an armed robbery in Somis.

“He got all boozed up, used 30 minutes of bad judgment and two lives are lost: the victim’s and his own,” Willey said. Investigators said Castro confessed to the shooting shortly after his arrest. Willey said Castro has no felony convictions in his background.

“There is no violence in his past,” he said.

Castro cried while entering his plea, and Willey said his client is remorseful. Willey hopes that pleading guilty early will help his client draw something less than the maximum sentence, which is life in prison.

Willey declined to discuss the details of the shooting or the crime spree and said his client did not implicate the others alleged to have participated.

“No deals were made,” Willey said.

The alleged driver of the car, Arturo Contreras, 18, also has been charged with murder. He has also been charged with robbery and firing into an occupied dwelling and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Jose Duarte, 17, has been charged with robbery. If convicted, Duarte could become the county’s youngest person to be sentenced under the state’s “three-strikes” law, which mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for a third serious felony conviction.

A judge ruled earlier that Duarte should be tried as an adult.

Another 17-year-old gang member has been charged with robbery. Prosecutors said they will seek to have him tried as an adult as well.