Trial Ordered for Suspect in Restaurateur’s Slaying

Felix Magana was wearing his guns the day he stepped into the La Playita Seafood restaurant in Santa Paula.

Drinking beer with his brother-in-law, he showed off the two weapons--a .357 magnum and a 10-millimeter semiautomatic--to at least two waitresses.

Described as drunk by his own lawyer, the 50-year-old farm worker staggered as he got up from the counter, had a few words with a young pool player and was then asked to leave by the restaurant’s owner, Isabel Guzman.

Magana seemed to cool down at first. But a few minutes later, he confronted the 30-year-old Guzman outside the restaurant and then allegedly shot her to death.

That account, provided by witnesses and prosecutors, was given Monday at a preliminary hearing that ended when Municipal Judge Edward F. Brodie ordered Magana held for trial on first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting.

The testimony provided the first details of what took place on Nov. 2 when the popular local businesswoman was shot to death while unloading supplies from an ice cream truck in the alley behind the restaurant on East Main Street in Santa Paula.

Before binding Magana over for trial, Brodie heard from two eyewitnesses to the shooting and two waitresses who saw Magana at the restaurant brandishing the .357 magnum revolver and the 10-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.

Magana’s brother-in-law, Jose Rafael Lemus, and a waitress both tried to take the guns away from Magana, but he took them back and slipped them into his waistband, the witnesses testified.

Magana was drinking beers with Lemus at the restaurant, Lemus testified.

During Monday’s hearing, Lemus testified that he was too intoxicated to remember anything.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Phillips brought up earlier statements Lemus made to police that he remembered Magana brandishing the weapons, confronting the pool player and Guzman, and that he saw Magana shoot the 30-year-old businesswoman after a confrontation outside the restaurant.

“Did you not tell police that you were standing outside when [Magana] shot and killed Isabel Guzman?” Phillips asked Lemus.

“When you are very drunk you don’t remember things,” Lemus answered.

Prior to the shooting, according to other witnesses, Magana had reacted angrily when another man who was playing pool nearby swore out loud.

Holding a gun in each hand, Magana walked up to the man and was confronting him just as Guzman came in to the restaurant, testified 17-year-old Salomon Paramo, who was also shooting pool in the restaurant.

According to Paramo, Guzman then told Magana: “If there’s a problem here I’ll call the police.”

Magana said there was no problem and walked out the back, Paramo said. At the same time, Paramo added, Guzman also went out the back of the restaurant to unload the ice cream truck.

Paramo said he saw Guzman and Magana talking outside the restaurant, but could not hear them. He said Magana at one point grabbed Guzman’s arm, then pulled his .357 out of his waistband and fired three times.

Deputy Public Defender Bill Rutan, representing Magana, said Magana is not contesting that he shot Guzman, but that he was too drunk to have formulated any actual intent to murder her.

The morning after the shooting, Magana gave a statement to police in which he admitted the shooting, but alleged that Guzman had hit him before he reached for his gun, Rutan said.

Magana’s blood-alcohol level was high enough to cause most people to pass out, he said.

“That’s not, strictly speaking, a defense for murder,” Rutan said. “But it does have a bearing on his state of mind, and his degree of culpability.”

In addition, Rutan said that Magana showed no malice toward Guzman.

“The largest issue is motive, and there doesn’t seem to be any motive here,” Rutan said. “There was no reason for him to have shot her.”

For prosecutors to win a first-degree murder conviction they must show intent. Although prosecutors concede that they are not sure of a motive in the shooting, they believe that Magana’s actions after the shooting show that he was not so intoxicated that he could not reason.

A police officer who arrived shortly after the 5:30 p.m. shooting saw Magana walking away holding one of the guns. Magana walked as if he was getting ready to run, said Officer Michelle Velasco.

Velasco testified Monday that she watched as Magana went behind a propane tank where prosecutors allege he hid both guns.

“He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing,” said prosecutor Phillips. “He ran from police, and he tried to hide the weapons.”

Magana is being held in the Ventura County Jail pending a Superior Court arraignment on the murder charge Dec. 30. His bail is set at $500,000.