Attorneys Paint 2 Portraits of Suspect in Fatal Crime Spree

As testimony began Tuesday in the murder trial of Arturo Contreras Jr., attorneys painted contrasting portraits of the 19-year-old Camarillo man accused of driving a carload of gang members on a violent and ultimately deadly crime spree through Ventura County last winter.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy III told jurors that Contreras was a gang member and instigator of a series of “racially motivated” crimes that started at a Camarillo fast-food restaurant and ended with the “cold-blooded murder” of a Moorpark motorist less than an hour later.

Contreras is on trial on murder, robbery and shooting charges stemming from the Dec. 3, 1995, crime spree.

Using a highlighted map, Hardy charted the course of the crimes: a verbal confrontation with employees at Taco Bell, a drive-by shooting at a Camarillo house, the robbery of a man at a Somis market and finally, the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Jesus Manjarrez, who was stopped at a red light in Moorpark.

The attorney said the drive-by shooting was racially motivated because Contreras was trying to threaten an African American who had once dated his sister.

“Mr. Contreras was the heart of this entire incident,” Hardy said in his opening statement. “Mr. Contreras was the driving force behind these shootings.”

But Hardy’s defense attorney, Willard P. Wiksell, told the jury a different story.

He argued that Contreras was not an instigator but simply the man driving the car from which other people committed crimes.

He also challenged Hardy’s claim that the crimes were racially motivated and told jurors that prior to the Moorpark shooting, Contreras demanded that one of his buddies get rid of the gun that was later used to kill Manjarrez.

“Mr. Contreras made it clear that he didn’t want the gun in the car,” he said.

“Was he just there? Did he take an active part?” Wiksell asked the jury. “The question becomes: What is the proof? That is what you are going to decide.”

A passenger in the car Contreras was driving, Michael Castro, 21, has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying of Manjarrez. He was sentenced in March to 30 years to life in prison.

Castro was riding in the back seat of the Pontiac sedan with the three other admitted Camarillo gang members when they came across Manjarrez stopped at a traffic light at Spring and High streets. They mistook Manjarrez for a member of a rival Moorpark gang.

The occupants of the car taunted Manjarrez, who was on his way home from his job at a movie theater, with a gang challenge, asking him, “Where are you from?”

At that point, Castro jumped out of the car and fired five shots into Manjarrez’s car. One bullet struck Manjarrez in the forehead above his eye, Hardy said.

As the two attorneys made their opening statements to the 12 jurors and two alternates, Contreras sat demurely at the defense table, dressed in a crisp white shirt, black pants and a tie.

He is the only one of the four involved in the shooting to be prosecuted.

Jose Espinoza, 17, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and to committing a drive-by shooting and robbery. Jose Duarte, 17, was sentenced in July to 15 years in prison for his involvement in the cross-county crime spree.