Justice Catches Up With Oxnard Killer After 21-Year Flight

Twenty-one years after stabbing a man to death in a brawl outside an Easter dance, an Oxnard market worker was convicted of murder Monday.

A Ventura County Superior Court jury deliberated barely three hours late Friday and early Monday before finding Marcos Ortiz Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the March 18, 1976, slaying of Louis Provincio.

Prosecutors credited the conviction to a collection of neighborhood friends, acquaintances and former members of Ortiz’s car club who managed to dredge up memories of that night for the jury.

“It’s a good verdict, it is appropriate,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona. “We were fortunate to be able to find all our witnesses after 21 years.”

Ortiz, 40, is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 16. He faces a maximum of 15 years to life in prison.

His lawyer, Steven Powell, declined to comment on the case to reporters.

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Witnesses testified that Ortiz and several other members of the East Side Classics Car Club were at an Easter dance at the Elks Lodge in Oxnard.

One club member testified that he saw Ortiz and three or four other members surround Provincio and kick him to the ground--and that Ortiz stabbed the man several times with a 4-inch blade.

Ortiz took the stand at his trial to testify that he was in the parking lot that night and that several fights broke out. But he denied ever attacking Provincio.

While seven other suspects wound up facing trial on charges ranging from assault to murder, Ortiz fled to Mexico soon after Provincio’s death, Corona said.

Ortiz signed court papers saying that he lived in Mexico for 10 years, then began trading time between Mexico and Texas before finally settling in Oxnard in 1994.

After eluding police for years, Ortiz was caught in September and booked on a domestic violence charge. Police checked his name in national crime databanks and found a warrant for his arrest.

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Next week, sentencing is scheduled for another murder case that also went unsolved until a domestic violence arrest squeezed information out of a witness.

Ruben Rodriguez, 39, was convicted in the 1984 murder of Mario Torres in Fillmore, which took place as they sat around a campfire drinking with other migrant workers.

Rodriguez was arrested because another man--arrested for allegedly holding a gun to his wife’s head--offered information about the Torres slaying in exchange for leniency in his own case.

Rodriguez will be sentenced Monday.