Slain Man Was Unaware of Ex-Wife’s Breakup, Police Say

A man killed in a fight with his ex-wife’s former boyfriend apparently did not know that they had broken up months earlier, police said Tuesday.

Mario Maraquin, 33, went to the apartment of Rony Folgar, 36, on Monday to confront him over the relationship, and Folgar shot him several times with a large-caliber pistol in the clash that followed, said Los Angeles Police Det. Dan O’Hanian.

Maraquin ran off, leaving a bloody trail before dying in a nearby hospital.

Folgar, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, contends that he acted in self-defense, O’Hanian said.

O’Hanian said Maraquin and his ex-wife, Lorena Maraquin, saw Folgar recently at a Hollywood nightclub. “I guess [Mario Maraquin] didn’t like the way [Folgar] looked at her, so . . . went to his apartment looking for trouble and he found it.”

Folgar told police that he and Lorena Maraquin dated for about six weeks before they broke up in December. They did not get along, he told police, because of their different views on child rearing.

The Maraquins were divorced “on paper,” but still lived together, O’Hanian said.

During his interrogation after the shooting, Folgar did not seem to know that Maraquin had died, O’Hanian said.

“We only have one guy’s story” but police have no cause yet to doubt Folgar’s version of the shooting, O’Hanian said. However, Folgar was being held on $1 million bail until the district attorney’s office can consider the case, he said.

Folgar’s sister, Rocio Flores, 33, who lives in the same apartment building, said she was not home when the shooting took place but added that her brother shot Maraquin in self-defense.

“This morning Mario was really calm. He knows it wasn’t his fault.”